Polymer analysis and polymer spectroscopy for plastics analysis

Gaining deeper insights into polymers

Polymers & Plastics

How Bruker’s polymer analysis and polymer spectroscopy allow deeper insights into molecular structure as into orientations and conformations of polymer chains.

Polymer analysis using NMR

Polymer analysis and analysis of plastics can be carried out by using NMR in different states and under a large variety of conditions. Solid state NMR is used to analyze insoluble polymers or those that do not melt. High temperature NMR can be applied for studies of molten polymers or materials in special high temperature solvents and HR-MAS NMR can provide detailed information of polymers in solvent swollen or semi-rigid states.

The high dynamic range of the AVANCE-III system combined with the optimized probe performance makes NMR the ideal tool to study polymer end-groups, branching and other features of the material present only in minute quantities.

Polymer Characterization by Infrared and Raman Spectroscopy

Vibrational spectroscopy (Infrared, Near Infrared and Raman) has been widely used for the identification and characterization of polymers.
Infrared spectra of polymers give insight into structures at molecular level as into orientations and conformations of polymer chains.

Today, there is an increasing interest in investigating the dynamic properties of polymer films using infrared spectroscopy; the external perturbation of great interest is imposing a repeatable dynamic strain on the polymer. The dynamic difference IR spectra thus obtained can provide information as to the re-orientations and the conformational changes of the polymers.

FT-IR spectroscopy is very established for the quality control of industrially manufactured polymers. A change in the characteristic pattern of its absorption bands clearly indicates the change in a product or its contamination. If a bad spot in a product was found by visible inspection, its origin is typically determined by FT-IR microanalysis as this technique is capable to analyze the chemical composition of even very small areas on the surface.
FT-IR microanalysis as well as Raman analysis are further used in polymers to reveal the chemical structure of multilayered laminates.

Process Monitoring of Polymers

Near infrared spectroscopy is becoming more and more established for the monitoring of polymer production processes. Many companies start to replace conventional at-line analysis methods by spectroscopic online tools like the MATRIX-F FT-NIR spectrometer.

Innovative analytical methods are of great economic interest. An increased speed of analytical processes and decreased maintenance costs offer a high savings potential. The great amount of information delivered by the NIR spectra allow a simultaneous high-precision analysis of many different components and system parameters such as density, viscosity, degree of cross-linking, stabilizer as well as monomer content and many others.