Probing oxidative degradation in polymers using {sup 17}O NMR spectroscopy

Understanding the mechanism of oxidative degradation remains an important goal in being able to predict the aging process in polymer materials. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has previously been utilized to investigate polymer degradation, including both proton ({sup 1}H) and carbon ({sup 13}C) studies. These previous NMR studies, as well as other spectroscopic investigations, are complicated by the almost overwhelming signal arising from the native undegraded polymer. This makes the identification and quantification of degradation species at small concentrations difficult. In this note we discuss recent investigation into the use of oxygen ({sup 17}O) NMR spectroscopy to probe the oxidative degradation process in polymers at a molecular level. Due to the low natural abundance (0.037%) and a nuclear spin of I=5/2 possessing an appreciable quadrupolar moment, the use of {sup 17}O NMR in polymer investigations has been limited. By utilizing synthetically enriched oxygen gas during the accelerated aging process, both the difficulties of low natural abundance and background interference signals are eliminated. For enriched samples {sup 17}O NMR spectra now provide a unique probe since all of the observed NMR resonances are the direct result of oxidative degradation