ABSTRACT
The availability of radioactive sources and particle accelerators has stimulated studies on their use for initiating chain polymerizations. These refer mainly to the radiation-induced production of free radicals, which are able to initiate vinyl polymerization. First evidence of vinyl polymerization by high-energy radiation was found before World War II [1-3], but it was in the 1950s and 1960s that numerous data on radiation-induced polymerization of many monomers were accumulated. Special attention has also been devoted to the exposure of polymeric substrates to high-energy radiation. The polymer-bound radicals and ions generated under these circumstances in the presence of a monomer may initiate graft copolymerization. Tailor-made polymers with an interesting combination of properties are thus accessible.
