The design and construction of a cell for the in situ monitoring of copolymerisation reactions using FT-Raman spectroscopy

Abstract The copolymerisation of styrene and vinyl imidazole was studied online using a unique Raman cell. The copolymerisation parameters, r 1 and r 2 , were obtained and compared with values obtained from NMR and elemental analysis. The problems associated with the technique and the data processing are discussed. Although there was poor correlation between techniques it was concluded that Raman has great potential as a much faster method therefore enabling much more data to be collected and giving information on the progress of copolymerisation reactions.

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