Offline Monitoring of Hydroxyethyl Methacrylate and 3-Dimethylaminopropyl Methacrylamide Copolymerization: Correlation Between FTIR and GC Quantifications

Attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy is classically used to monitor homopolymerizations. In this article, this analytical technique was extended to monitor the synthesis of VIVIPRINT 300, which is a copolymer of 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and N-3-dimethylaminopropyl]methacrylamide (DMAPMA). The calibration curves devised for this study were based on the two homopolymers P(HEMA) and P(DMAPMA). A good correlation was realized between the FTIR absorbance intensities observed respectively at 1300 cm^?1 (polymerized C-O ester bond) and 1230 cm^?1 (polymerized C-N amide bond) and the level of residual HEMA and DMAPMA monomers determined by GC. Application of these calibration curves to the copolymerization also exhibited a good correlation of data relating to residual monomer determination by FTIR and GC, validating the success of this spectroscopic in situ technique.