Journal Article

On the origin of absorbance band around 1700 cm super(-1) in FTIR spectra of hypercrosslinked polystyrene

Borisov, YuA, Platonova, N P, Buryak, A K, Tsyurupa, M P, Davankov, V A, Ul'yanov, A V, Blinnikova, Z K

2014

Overview

This paper deals with some new arguments corroborating the absence of carbonyl moieties [1] in the chemical structure of hypercrosslinked polystyrenes in spite of the high intensity of the absorption band around 1700 cm super(-1) in their FTIR spectra. Three additional facts testify to the benefit of this conclusion. First is the appearance of the absorbance band at 1700 cm super(-1) in a computer-simulated IR spectrum of a rigid highly crosslinked model network that contains no C=O groups. Second, thermal degradation of the hypercrosslinked network with a formal 500% crosslinking density results in emergence in its mass-spectrum of benzene, alkylbenzenes and hydrogen chloride, only. Third, testing the above hypercrosslinked polystyrene as a stationary phase in a GC column shows the polymer to retain aliphatic hydrocarbons, alcohols and ketones largely by dispersion interactions, thus revealing no polar oxygen-containing groups on its surface.

• Subject: Absorbance