Polymer and Plastic Testing and Analysis
The identity of a plastic material (polymer ID) should be the starting point to maintain the quality control of your plastic or polymer products. Indeed the complete composition of your plastic products should be determined with each new batch of received materials. A variety of tools and methods are used to identify polymers and determine their content in various products. Foremost among these methods is molecular spectroscopy which records the FTIR spectrum of the material to determine its molecular make-up. If the material is a single polymer or even a blend or copolymer it can be identified from its FTIR spectrum.
Other methods used in this laboratory to determine the content of polymers and their additives are liquid and gas chromatography, solvent extraction, muffle furnace ashing, thermal analysis, elemental analysis and microscopic methods.