an electron beam (EBLab 200 sealed laboratory emitter system, Comet
AG, Switzerland). The samples were exposed to a dose of 50 kGy under
nitrogen (<200 ppm oxygen), employing an acceleration voltage of
200 keV.
For testing the sensitivity of the method, a radiation
mask with slits of 500 μm was used to partially block the radiation.
This process generates samples with modified areas of 500 μm
with a separation of 930 μm (
acrylic acid (Sigma Aldrich) in ultrapure water (18.2 MΩ·cm)
for 30 min at 60 °C using a methodology similar to the one employed
by Forner-Cuenca et al.29 (link)For the
coating analysis, after activation, the samples were grafted
by submerging them in a reactor with a 0.5 M sodium p-styrene sulfonate (Sigma Aldrich) and 0.5 M acrylic acid (Sigma
Aldrich) solution in ultrapure water (18.2 MΩ·cm). The
reactor content was purged with N2 for 1 h and placed in
a water bath for 24 h at 60 °C.
All samples were afterward
cleaned by rinsing them with water,
ethanol, and water again using a vacuum table. The GDLs were then
dried, and the ionic exchange was made by placing them in a 0.015
M 157GdCl3 (Trace Sciences International, 92.3%
isotopical enrichment) solution for 24 h (
dried again.