Methylmethacrylate on-line polymerisation monitoring by light-fibre Fourier transform near infrared transmission spectroscopy and Fourier transform mid infrared/attenuated total reflection spectroscopy

Growing legal requirements in terms of the identity and quality control of chemical products increasingly require the use of analytical techniques which can be applied solvent- and destruction-free or which can be directly implemented in a process to provide real-time information. With the vibrational spectroscopic techniques of mid-infrared (MIR), near infrared (NIR) and Raman spectroscopy in combination with special probes and chemometric evaluation procedures, such tools have become available and are gaining increasing importance for industrial process monitoring. The present communication reports the results obtained by on-line light-fibre coupled Fourier transform near infrared (FT-NIR) transmission spectroscopy and Fourier transform mid infrared (FT-MIR) spectroscopy in the attenuated total reflection (ATR) mode to monitor the solution polymerisation of methylmethacrylate.