Can attenuated total internal reflection-Fourier transform infrared be used to understand the interaction between polymers and water? A hyperspectral imaging study

Abstract

This study investigates the potential use of attenuated total internal reflection-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FT- IR) imaging, a hyperspectral imaging modality, to investigate molecular level trends in the interaction of water with polymeric surfaces of varying hydrophobicity. The hydrophobicity of two categories of polymeric biomaterials is characterised using contact angle (CA) measurements and their relationship with the band area of the OH stretching νs vibration of water over time is presented. This is supported with correlations between CA data and single wavenumber intensity values (univariate analysis). Multivariate analysis of the spectra captured at the OH stretch for all polymers is carried out using principal component analysis to study the spatial variation in the interaction between the polymeric surfaces and water. Finally, a comparison between the univariate and multivariate strategies is presented to understand the interaction between polymeric biomaterials and water. This is a corrected version of the original paper; this corrected version was published on 15 May 2017. Please see Erratum at https://doi.org/10.1255/jsi.2017.a3e.

Predictive modelling of the water contact angle of surfaces using attenuated total reflection – Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) chemical imaging and partial least squares regression (PLSR)

“…Wetted spectra were captured after hydrating the sample at room temperature (21-25 °C and 40-60% relative humidity) with an equilibration time of at least 30 minutes by trapping water using BluTac™ to construct a well on the surface. 22 Deionised (DI) water was used to wet the polymers, sourced from a Thermo Scientific™ Barnstead™ Smart2Pure™ water purification system (water type I ASTM, resistance is 18.2 MΩ cm at temperature 25.6 °C). The ATR-FTIR system was continuously purged using dry N 2 to minimise the effect of atmospheric moisture on the spectral acquisition.…”

“…21 Attenuated Total Reflection-Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-FTIR) imaging is widely used for the characterization of polymeric surfaces, and recently it has been proposed to investigate the interface between different biomaterials and water. 22 Furthermore, FTIR systems are portable enough to be deployed in the field. 23 Here, we propose a simple method to model the surface wettability of polymeric surfaces, which encounter water, using a combination of ATR-FTIR imaging and PLSR predictive modelling.…”

Durable and Superhydrophobic Aluminium Alloy with Microscale Hierarchical Structures and Anti-Drag Function Inspired by Diving Bell Spider

“…Generally, when the contact angle of the surface is greater than 90 • , it is defined as a hydrophobic surface. In particular, when the contact angle is greater than 150 • and the sliding angle (SA) is less than 10 • , water droplets could maintain a spherical shape on the solid surface, which is called a superhydrophobic surface [9][10][11][12]. However, the conventional superhydrophobic paint focuses on enhancing the water-repellent performance solely, which neglects the physicochemical durability [6,[13][14][15].…”

Chemometric methods applied in the image plane to correct striping noise in hyperspectral chemical images of biomaterials

“…The introduction of multichannel detectors has allowed the collection of a large number of FTIR spectra from an image field, reducing an acquisition time by a factor corresponding to the number of detector elements. However, it was found that linear array detectors in the IR imaging instrument are prone to striping noise patterns, which are difficult to remove . Scheffler and Karrasch have observed the image stripes in the remote sensing data using a typical pushbroom hyperspectral sensor.…”