On the use of recent developments in vibrational spectroscopic instrumentation in an industrial environment: quicker, smaller and more robust

In recent years, considerable developments have taken place in Raman, mid-i nfrared (mid-IR) and near-infrared (MT) instrumentation. This has had a maj or influence on the number and type of applications these techniques have i n industry. In the current paper, we illustrate this by three applications from our laboratory. The first example relates to the UV curing of coating resins. By using rapi d-scanning mid-IR in combination with a reflection-absorption cell, it beca me possible to follow the kinetics of the curing reaction in thin resin lay ers on the 50-1000-ms scale. Several examples are presented. In addition, i t was shown that multichannel near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a powerf ul tool to study curing reactions in thick layers (100-500 mu) and/or on a time scale under 50 ms. For in situ reaction monitoring, NIRS, mid-IR-attenuated total reflection ( ATR) spectroscopy or laser Raman spec -troscopy are currently the favoured choices of vibrational techniques. An example is given describing the forma tion of melamine formaldehyde (MF) resins followed by in-line Raman spectro scopy. It was shown that modern high-throughput fibre optic Raman spectrosc opy readily provides real-time information on solvation behaviour, the conv ersion of the reaction and the end point. The availability of high-resolution (10 nm) band-pass filters and high-reso lution (10 nm) acousto-optical tunable filters (AOTF) enabled us to develop both a portable and a rapid carpet identifier. In order to recycle valuabl e face fibres from carpet waste material, one has to sort the carpets accor ding to the face fibre type. For this purpose, a cheap portable identifier (identification in 2 s, battery-powered, 3 kg) was developed based on MR fi lter technology. In addition, a rapid carpet identifier was developed based on the AOTF, also working in the NIR. With the latter instrument, one can identify the face fibre of the carpets in ca. 25 ms. (C) 2000 Elsevier Scie nce B.V. All rights reserved.