Polarized FTIR photoacoustic spectroscopy on blends of thermoplastic poly(ether-urethanes) with modified polypropylenes

Polarized Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) transmission and attenuated tot al reflection (ATR) spectroscopy are well-known powerful tools to determine the orientation function of polymer materials. Both methods demand a speci al sample preparation. In our present studies, we used polarized FTIR photo acoustic spectroscopy (PAS) to determine the orientation function of real p roducts from polymer processing without special preparation. We compare the results with those obtained with polarized FTIR transmission spectroscopy. It is demonstrated that polarized FTIR-PAS is useful to describe differenc es in the orientational behavior of hard and soft segments of thermoplastic poly(ether-urethane) in different elongated blends with common polypropyle ne and polypropylene grafted with maleic anhydride. (C) 2000 John Wiley & S ons, Inc.