Investigation of aritificial sports surfaces

Abstract

Artificial sports surfaces are becoming more prevalent worldwide as a sporting ground. In order for it to be a suitable and competitive substitution for natural sports turfs, concerns of fouling must be addressed. . In this project, two types of polymer graft chains, hydrophilic polymer, 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate and zwitterionic polymer, sulfobetaine methacrylate were grafted using ultra violet radiation onto polypropylene substrate. For 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate grafted substrate, the properties related to antifouling characteristic were studied using fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry. In addition, the effect of plasma pre-irradiation of the substrate was studied for the 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate samples. For sulfobetaine methacrylate grafted substrate, the properties related to antifouling characteristic wqwere studied using contact angle measurements, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry.