Spectroscopy is well-suited for measuring polymer identities. It provides rapid, accurate, and non-destructive material analysis for industrial and research applications.

The SR-3500 is a portable, full range UV/VIS/NIR spectrometer that can be used to:

• Accurately identify plastics for recycling to avoid contamination and potential processing problems
• Correctly sort polymer resins
• Sort and identify raw materials
• Measure raw material purity
• Analyze moisture content

The SR-3500 delivers a number of benefits for plastics identification:

• Rapid, reliable, and non-invasive measurement
• Cost-effective analysis
• Portability – take the analyzer to the application
• No sample prep necessary
• Easy to use DARWin SP Data Acquisition software
• Easy to use with 3rd party chemometric software for more in-depth analysis

NIR spectra can be attributed to the five major groups of plastic resins:

• Polyethylene terephthalate (PET)
• High density polyethylene (HDPE)
• Polyvinyl chloride (PVC)
• Polypropylene(PP)
• Polystyrene (PS)

NIR spectroscopy can be performed on starting materials, materials in process, and finished product, off-line in the lab, on- line separated from the processing stream, or in-line within the process itself.

Plastic identification applications can include:

• Accurately identifying specific plastics in recycling
• Measuring quality in thermoplastic production
• Incoming raw materials quality control
• Analysis of physical attributes including density and viscosity
• Final quality assessment of finished product
• Quantifying the constituent parts of polymers, including residual solvents and monomers
• Measuring and identifying additives
• Measuring water content
• Determining physical and chemical properties

SR-3500 Spectroradiometer

No sample prep required, highly reliable with no moving parts, easy-to-use – the SR-3500 is a good match for plastic/polymer analysis and identification.

Transreflectance of three different plastic films measured with the SM-3500. Each scan took less than one second. DARWin SP Data Acquisition software allows for the combination of multiple scans in a single plot for comparison. Scans represent polyester (red trace), polystyrene (blue), and acetate (green) films.