Analytical imaging FTIR microscopy

TLC remains one of the most widely used techniques for a simple and rapid qualitative separation. The combination of TLC with spectroscopic detection techniques, such as FTIR or nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), is a very attractive approach to analyze polymer additives. Infrared microscopy is a powerful technique that combines the imaging capabUities of optical microscopy with the chemical analysis abilities of infrared spectroscopy. FTIR microscopy allows obtaining of infrared spectra from microsized samples. Offline TLC-FTIR microscopy was used to analyze a variety of commercial antioxidants and light stabilizers. Transferring operation and identification procedure by FTIR takes about 20 min. However, the main drawbacks of TLC-FTIR are that TLC is a time-consuming technique and usually needs solvent mixtures, which makes TLC environmentally unsound, analytes must be transferred for FTIR analysis, and TLC-FTIR cannot be used for quantifying purposes. 

The past decade has seen the emergence of analytical imaging, which is imaging using the signals from various analytical instruments, such as FTIR and Raman microscopy, x-ray microscopy, and imaging by surface analysis using secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and x-ray photon spectroscopy (XPS). 

In summary, it will be apparent that the nonnal starling point for an analytical strategy would be the obtaining of information with the readily accessible techniques, i.e., optical microscopy, SEM/EDS, XRD, XPS, and FTIR or Raman spectroscopy. Based on the outcome of the initial survey, the rc-searcher/analysts should then be able to make a more informed choice of the detail and nature of information required subsequently, in terms of spatial resolution. atomic imaging, molecular structure, chemical. states and lateral di.stri-bution. The requirements will also dictate whether the analysis should go in the direction of either greater spatial or better spectral resolutions. 

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