Quantitative Analysis of Polyvinyl Alcohol-Polyethylene (PVOH-PE) Copolymers and Polyvinyl Pyrrolidone-Polyvinyl Acetate (PVP-PVAc) Copolymers and Blends Using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Elemental Analysis

Ronald P. D¡¯Amelia^1, , Ling Huang¹ and Joseph Mancuso¹

¹Chemistry Department, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY

Cite this paper

Ronald P. D¡¯Amelia, Ling Huang and Joseph Mancuso. Quantitative Analysis of Polyvinyl Alcohol-Polyethylene (PVOH-PE) Copolymers and Polyvinyl Pyrrolidone-Polyvinyl Acetate (PVP-PVAc) Copolymers and Blends Using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Elemental Analysis. World Journal of Chemical Education. 2019; 7(1):1-11. doi: 10.12691/WJCE-7-1-1

Abstract

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) is a widespread instrumental technique used to determine the molecular structure of organic polymers. With the goal of increasing instrumental use in the undergraduate chemistry laboratory, we have devised a quantitative FTIR experiment to be used in instrumental analysis courses. The objective was to determine the % PVOH in copolymers with PE as well as to determine the % PVAc in copolymers and blends with PVP. We report on the methodology used to determine % PVOH and %PVP, as well as the results obtained via FTIR and elemental analysis. The literature regarding PVOH-PE copolymers refers to them as either EVOH copolymers or PVOH-PE copolymers, though EVOH is more common and thus these copolymers will be referred to as EVOH. The EVOH copolymers ranged from 73 to 56 mole% PVOH and the copolymers and blends of PVP-PVAc ranged from 70 to 30 mole% PVP.

Keywords

quantitative analysis, elemental analysis, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, undergraduate laboratory experiment, hand-on learning, Ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymer, n-vinyl pyrrolidone - vinyl acetate copolymer and blends

Copyright

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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