Added
value
to your
innovation
Added
value
to your
innovation
Services
PTG/e can be an extension of your in-house R&D. Whether it is contract research or simply the analysis of a material, you can count on us for professional support. We take a pragmatic approach, which translates into short communication lines internally and regular contact between our researchers and the customer. In this way we can monitor project progress and steer the process as needed.
Our services include organising postdoc-level open courses. And thanks to our large network of lecturers, we are also able to offer (in-house) courses tailored to your specific needs.
Research & innovation
Need an experienced partner to complement your in-house R&D from time to time? For example when you are short of capacity or do not have the necessary material expertise in house?
PTG/e is fully equipped to take on a variety of tasks.
Also for shorter term projects, PTG/e is your partner. Comparison of raw materials, material identification or a quick literature scan – these are just a few of the services that PTG/e can perform for you.
Courses
With access to a wide network of (own) experts in many areas of chemistry, PTG/e is excellently placed to help you expand your knowledge of polymers. We are organizing customized company specific courses, as well as open PTN courses.
Publications
The Scent of the Season: A GC-MS Exploration
The holiday season is filled with traditions, like putting up a Christmas tree in your house. This fills our living rooms with the pine aroma we are all familiar with. While our noses can identify this characteristic pine scent, we were wondering if we can uncover the chemistry behind it by using advanced analysis techniques. Therefore, we collected some resin from our Christmas tree and analyzed it with Gas Chromatography combined with Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS).
GC-MS is a powerful analytical technique used to identify and quantify chemical compounds in unknown mixtures. This process separates the components in a sample based on differences in their boiling points and their interaction with the GC column. When the compounds leave the column, they are analyzed by a mass spectrometer which breaks them up into fragments. The fragmentation pattern is collected into a mass spectrum, which is unique for each compound. It can therefore serve as a molecular fingerprint. By comparing these mass spectra to compounds in databases, the chemical structures of the components within the resin can be identified.
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Figure 1: Chromatogram of the analyzed pine tree resin, showcasing the characteristic signals corresponding to the identified compounds.
Through this analysis, we identified three compounds from Christmas tree resin: pinene, phellandrene, and bornyl acetate. These structures are also known as terpenes and their molecular structures, together with the chromatogram, are shown in Figure 1. Behind each peak in this chromatogram is a mass spectrum that was picked up by the mass spectrometer which we used to identify these three compounds. These specific terpenes are naturally produced in the resin and are responsible for the characteristic scent of pine trees. Due to their relatively small molecular size and volatile nature, these compounds readily evaporate when the resin is exposed to warmth or light. This is the fragrance we are smelling which is reminiscent of forests or the warmth of Christmas.
To summarize, GC-MS helped us to unveil the science behind the scent of Christmas. Beyond this festive application, this powerful analytical tool serves as a versatile technique for the composition of a wide variety of unknown samples in a quantitative and qualitative manner.
Curious how GC-MS can benefit your project, please feel free to contact us! In the meantime, we wish you happy holidays!
Tensile Tester combined with Climate Chamber
In this video, we demonstrate material testing using food containers made of polystyrene and polypropylene. We show how these materials perform under extreme conditions: freezing temperatures (-20°C) like in a freezer, and high heat (+100°C) like in a microwave or dishwasher.
Curious how Tensile Testing in combination with a Climate Chamber can benefit your project, please feel free to let us know!
Stretching the limits of rubber analysis
- Cases, Publications
Rubber products such as tires, gaskets or shock-absorbers are often complex products consisting of the rubber matrix along with many different filler materials and additives. Due to the complexity it is not always straightforward to analyse these products.
One of our customers is active in the automotive industry. After complaints from their customers, they noticed that a newly delivered rubber shock-absorber behaved differently in the field than previously delivered ones, while they should have been the same in terms of material composition and physical properties. They suspected their supplier may have changed the rubber composition of the newly delivered products.
In order for us to find out what caused the different behaviour and to check the rubber composition, they provided us with samples of a reference and a new rubber shock-absorber. We used a combination of techniques to analyse these rubber samples. By combining the results from the different techniques, we succeeded in explaining the behaviour difference of the rubber products.
The first technique we used was infrared spectroscopy (IR). This is a very powerful analysis technique, which gives information about the molecular structure of a rubber. Analysis, however, can be complicated due to the presence of carbon black. In this case we used that to our advantage. We found the baseline of one of the rubber samples was much more affected by the carbon black than the other one. This suggested there was a significant difference in carbon black content between the samples.
To quantify the carbon black amount present in both samples, Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was used. With TGA both samples were heated to 900 °C under nitrogen atmosphere, burning away the organic rubber part. By switching then the atmosphere to air, after reaching 900 °C, all carbon black was also burned away, leaving only inorganic fillers. During the whole analysis the sample weight was very accurately measured, to determine the weight percentages of the different rubber components. From the TGA analysis we also obtained information on the amount of oil present in the samples. Oils are often used in rubber to provide flexibility.
From the TGA analysis we concluded that the new rubber sample contained approximately 13% more carbon black compared to the reference sample. We also saw that in the reference sample a 10% higher oil content was present.
Both samples were also analysed using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) to compare the elemental composition. This analysis showed the reference sample contained much less sulphur compared to the new one. Since sulphur is known to be a crosslinker for rubber, this result suggested the new sample was more crosslinked, which increased its stiffness. This difference in stiffness was observed when comparing both reference and new samples.
By combining all results, we found the reference rubber sample had a lower carbon black content, a higher oil content and was less crosslinked. So we concluded that these differences in rubber composition made the newly delivered rubber shock-absorber more stiffer than the reference one. This explained the different behaviour in the field.
With the help of our independent report, our customer then could start discussions with their supplier about the quality of the delivered rubber shock absorbers.
While there are much more properties that can be of interest, many of which we can help you with, the aforementioned techniques have proven very useful to our customer. Because your product’s quality is our priority, contact us to find out how we can help you maintain it. If you are interested in our complete rubber analysis package, feel free to contact us!
