Abstract

Electron beam (EB) irradiation has the ability to modify polymer substrates by process of graft copolymerization to synthesize water-soluble copolymers having flocculating potential. Models – depicting the dependencies of the described quality characteristics (their means and variances) from process parameters – are estimated by implementation of the robust engineering methodology for quality improvement. Multiple criteria optimization based on the desirability function approach, involving requirements for economic efficiency, assurance of low toxicity, high copolymer efficiency in flocculation process, good solubility in water, bias, robustness, quality of prediction and the relative importance of responses, is presented.