LAUSR

In this work, curcumin nanocrystals (CCN) was used as fluorescence probes for monitoring the accelerated aging of high density polyethylene (HDPE) used in insulation of high-voltage cables. CCN has been synthesized and incorporated into HDPE matrix using hydrothermal process (HydP) at 202.65 kPa and temperatures of 60 °C and 120 °C. The apparent activation energy (E_A) for CCN incorporation into HDPE matrix was 54.4 kJ/mol. The resulting nanocomposite HDPE-CCN has been characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and fluorescence spectroscopy (FS). The crystallinity of HDPE and HDPE-CCN determined by DSC were 71.27% and 70.30% respectively, suggesting that the presence of CCN does not modify significantly the microstructure of HDPE. Accelerated aging of HDPE-CCN samples was carried out and the stress to break ( $\varepsilon _{\mathrm {b}}$ ), Young’s modulus (E) and fluorescence intensity (FI) were used as measurements of HDPE degradation. Mechanical properties ( $\varepsilon _{\mathrm {b}},\mathrm {E}$ ) and FI measurements do correlate with age-related material degradation on the HDPE samples examined.