Fundamentals of Radiation-Induced Graft Polymerization

Among the various graft polymerization methods, radiation-induced graft polymerization is powerful in that various forms of existing polymers can be selected as trunk polymers and converted into polymeric adsorbents. In particular, preirradiation graft polymerization has an advantage that the graft polymerization step can be separated from the irradiation step, which will enhance the industrial production of graft-type materials. The grafting of an epoxy-group-containing vinyl monomer, glycidyl methacrylate, enables the introduction of different functional moieties such as ion-exchange and chelate-forming groups, and hydrophobic and affinity ligands. In this chapter, batch and flow-through modes are described as methods of evaluating the performance of adsorbents for metal ions and proteins.