STRUCTURE CHARACTERIZATION OF FLUOROPOLYMERS

Introduction Fluoropolymers play an important role because of their stability against high temperatures and a number of chemicals. Due to the low surface energy and the low friction coefficient there are wide spread applications. However, the chemical stability implies, that they cannot be dissolved in common organic solvents, therefore solution state NMR, a common tool for structure characterization of polymers is impossible (1-3). In the present study various NMR spectra of a melt-processible terpolymer consisting of tetrafluoroethylene (TFE), hexafluoropropylene (HFP) and vinyilidene fluoride (VDF) (THV-200 G, Dyneon) are compared. Solid-state spectra, that have been acquired under high-speed MAS, are compared to spectra taken in the melt and spectra of THV-200 dissolved in supercritical CO2, an environmentally friendly solvent (4). The aim is to compare resolution and information content in the three kinds of NMR spectra. In addition, twodimensional experiments like TOCSY and NOESY have been performed in the melt to assist the sequence order assignments (5, 6).