Inter- and intramolecular
Interactions
Physically, it is intuitive that all components of a material contribute to its rheological properties to some extent. The way each component contributes to the material’s rheology depends on the details of the molecular structure and the interactions between all the molecules within the material. The RHEONAUT can track the formation or dissociation of inter- and intramolecular structures of samples in a shear field by monitoring the appearance or disappearance of chemical bonds in the infrared spectrum, e.g. during curing reactions. The objective here is to identify the important chemical aspects of molecules that are related to the deformation properties of the material. The RHEONAUT reveals the practical relationship between rheological behavior and molecular structures in the material, i.e. as a function of the degree of cross-linking.
Instrumental Setup:
An FTIR spectrometer linked to the HAAKE MARS rheometer by the RHEONAUT module provides both rheological profiles and spectral data containing chemical information about changes on a molecular level during deformation and stress relaxation of the sample material. The experimental principle is based on the synchronous acquisition of infrared spectra and flow curves during shearing, recovery or stress relaxation of the samples under investigation.