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Low density polyethylene (LDPE) is one of the cost-effective and an often used polymer in
packaging industries and in our day-to-day life. Their instability towards UV radiation and
mechanism of photo-degradation is still under debate. The aim of this work is to understand the effect of photo-oxidation on LDPE induced by weathering. In this dynamic world, “faster and reliability” are the two important factors that decide the success of any testing method. Artificial weathering has been widely used in the place of outdoor weathering, which reduced the time significantly from years to days. However, with proper testing method the days could also be reduced to hours. In this regard, oxygen plasma weathering can be a reliable method in simulating the effects of artificial weathering. In this dissertation, the photo-oxidation at various layers of the LDPE induced by artificial weathering and oxygen plasma weathering have been explored and analyzed by various surface and bulk techniques.

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