Quantitative NMR Analysis of PTMEG compounds

PTMEG(Polytetramethylene ether glycol) is a polymer compound widely used as a wide range of applications in the textile industry. PTMEG substance carrying various 1,800~2,000 molecular weight are mainly used as the raw material of the spandex production. Molecular weight and degree of polymerization value for 4 different PTMEG samples under pilot plant scale synthetic process were determined by a new quantitative NMR method. In NMR experiments, p-toluenesulfonic acid(TSOH) was used for external standard material of PTMEG quantitative analysis. were measuring The concentration of the primary standard TSOH was measured by UV/Vis spectroscopy. By using NMR peak assignments and the integral values of designated proton NMR peaks, We were able to measure the % composition of the synthetic PTMEG polymers, concentrations, molecular weight and the degree of polymerization that show the synthetic process of each manufacturing pilot plant. By utilizing a newly developed quantitative NMR method were able to obtain the molecular weight of PTMEG samples within 0.08 error % range.