Hi everyone,
I am going to analyze my plastic films incubated in bacteria media cultures. I am not sure for analyzing with FTIR do I need to rinse the plastic films with water, SDS or ethanol at first and then put the plastic films at ATR-FTIR diamond or not it is not needed.
Thanks in advance.
The most important thing about plastic films is that they should be clean and dry. In wet state the spectra very likely will show your solvent with very small if any peaks coming from your polymer.
Both SDS and ethanol give intense signals in possibly interesting IR regions (CH/SO and CH/CO/OH, respectively), so there is some risk of spectral interference, in particular with the non-volatile SDS.
I would use water for rinsing the films, dry them gently and then do the ATR. All contamination that can happen will be OH in that case, but you never know what part of the OH-signals comes from your polymer and what from hygroscopic moisture unless you freeze-dry your samples.
After removing all impurities from the film surface, it is better to dry it in a vacuum desiccator to minimize the water peaks though it is very difficult to ensure the moisture-free ambient conditions.
Many thanks or all of your recommendation. I cleaned my samples with distilled water and dry my samples 24 hours in 40 degree oven. I hope it works.
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