Inline characterization of polypropylene nanocomposites using FTNIR.

The morphology of polymer nanocomposites is usually characterized by various methods like Xray diffraction XRD or transmission electron microscopy TEM. In this work, a new approach for characterizing nanocomposites is developed: the results of small angle xray scattering, online extensional rheometry level of melt strength and Youngs modulus out of tensile test are correlated with those of near infrared NIR spectroscopy. The disadvantages of the common characterization methods are high costs and very time consuming sample preparation and testing. In contrast, NIR spectroscopy has the advantage to be measured inline and in real time directly in the melt. The results were obtained for different aggregate states NIR spectroscopy and online rheotens test in melt state, tensile test, and XRD in solid state. Therefore, important factors like crystallization could not be considered. Nevertheless, this work demonstrates that the NIRtechnology is perfectly suitable for quantitative inline characterization. The results show that, by the installation of a NIR spectrometer on a nanocompositeprocessing compounder, a powerful instrument for quality control and optimization of compounding process, in terms of increased and constant quality, is available. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]