0000000000170801
AUTHOR
Benjamin Monrabal
A New Calibration Method for the Accurate Determination of Ethylene Content in Ethylene-Propylene Copolymers by CRYSTEX-IR
Summary: CRYSTEX is a fully automated instrument for the determination of Xylene Solubles in polypropylene and ethylene-propylene copolymers, providing an excellent correlation with gravimetric methods. The instrument can be equipped with a dual band infrared (IR) detector to quantify the ethylene weight percentage (C2%) in the amorphous fraction, and in the whole polymer sample. In this work, a new approach based on multiple linear regression (MLR) models is presented, which makes use of two independent IR absorbance signals acquired simultaneously by the detector. A compromise model to predict directly C2% is proposed, which balances good accuracy and reduced experimental effort. MLR mode…
Characterization of Chemical Composition along the Molar Mass Distribution in Polyolefin Copolymers by GPC Using a Modern Filter-Based IR Detector
Summary Gel permeation chromatography (GPC), also known as size exclusion chromatography (SEC), is the technique routinely used at high temperature to analyze the molar mass distribution in polyolefins. The distribution of comonomer along the molar mass distribution in a copolymer is a key microstructural feature that determines the macroscopic properties of the material, and thus, its range of possible applications and performance. The direct coupling of a modern filter-based infrared (IR) detector to a high temperature GPC instrument, by means of a heated flow-through cell, is here described. The analyses are carried out by recording the continuous IR absorbance chromatograms at selected …