Characterization on Optical and Mechanical Properties of Low-Density Polyethylene Films Doped with Eu(III) Complex

Low-Density Polyethylene films of 100 μm thickness doped with Eu (TTA)3phen complex was hot-blown by a lab scale extrusion process. The ratio of the complex was varied from 0%, 0.025%, 0.5%, 0.1%, to 0.2% with respect to the total weight of LDPE. The mechanical properties of the films were measured according to ASTM D882, and ASTM D1938 standards. The optical and chemical properties were characterized by spectrofluorometer and FTIR respectively. FTIR characterization shows that Eu (TTA)3phen in LDPE films does not exhibit spectrum due to the dominant nature of amorphous LDPE. All emission transition lines of Eu3+ion for doped films were observed when excited at 394 nm, and the highest peak was detected at 608 nm. The peak intensity reached a saturation level at 0.1% doping ratio, while mechanical test showed that the tensile strength (TS) and elongation at break (EB) of machine direction (MD) oriented films decreased with increasing ratio of the complex, in which at doping ratio of 0.2%, both values dropped by 17.8% and 11.6% respectively.. These results indicate that different doped ratio of Eu (TTA)3phen affect significantly the film properties which offer possibility for an improved photoselective greenhouse plastic films. Keywords; LDPE, Eu (TTA)3phen, Photoluminescence.