Vibrational Spectroscopy in Analysis of Stimuli-Responsive Polymer–Water Systems

Over the last years, a rapid development in the material science, which is an answer to an increasing demand for functional, smart systems, has taken place. The recent progress in design, synthesis and characterization of stimuli-responsive polymer systems (SRPS) fits in this trend very well. However, extensive experiments, simulations as well as theoretical works are still conducted to deepen the knowledge about these systems, their complexity and diversity result in still insufficient understanding of some crucial phenomena. One of them is intermolecular interactions which change during swelling/deswelling processes, phase transitions (commonly leading to the phase separation) and loading or a release of various additives. Since the vibrational spectroscopy is considered to be the most powerful tool to study molecular interactions, this chapter presents various aspects related to the usage of vibrational spectroscopy in the field of SRPS.