Polymer additive analysis at the limits

Polymer/additive analysis is a complex problem. Analysis of additives in polymers takes advantage of all current instrumental tools featuring techniques based on low/high temperature, pressure, speed, wavelength, voltage, performance, sensitivity, selectivity, resolution, mass, fragmentation, dimensionality, orthogonality, equipment size, column technology, instrumental complexity, cost, timeliness, etc. with allowance for the use of extreme operating parameters in terms of volume, solvent use, temperature variation, time, speed, wavelength dependency, destructiveness, spatial resolution, remoteness, angular dependency, modulation, etc. Historically, analysis of polymer/additive packages has experienced a long series of tool development. Nowadays the experimentalist disposes of powerful tools with a proven record of being efficient in industrial problem solving. High-performance polymer/additive analysis does benefit from on-line, simultaneous analysis, fast screening, high sensitivity and high resolution. The future of in-polymer additive analysis will be strongly affected by developments in many instrumental disciplines. General trends are higher sensitivity, more information, faster and further automation. Some future needs are more reliable quantitation, reference materials and simplification of data management. A particular problem in additive analysis concerns accuracy and traceability. There are still many quantitative analytical methods waiting to be developed. It is here that the field will advance. The paper concludes with various proposals for (r)evolutionary developments in polymer/additive analysis. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.