Characterization of polymer latex by light scattering methods

SCHROEDER, WALTER F.; PETTARIN, VALERIA; ELIÇABE, GUILLERMO E.

Los Cocos, Argentina

Simposio; III Simposio Binacional de Polímeros Argentino-Chileno (III ARCHIPOL); 2005

Sociedad Chilena de Química - Asociación Argentina de Polímeros

In this work, a Fraunhofer setup designed to investigate liquid systems of different nature is presented. Other authors have also presented similar configurations (Lehner et al, 1998). Polystyrene latex standards of different sizes are employed to test this instrument in a range of concentrations and sample thickness, so that to test the validity of the single scattering assumption and thus the use of the Mie equations to correlate the data. Experimental results are analyzed using inverse analysis. We have demonstrated that an optimal relation between concentration and thickness of the sample has to be achieved in order to obtain the real particle size distribution.