Timegated® Raman spectroscopy of recovered plastics

An article Timegated® Raman spectroscopy of recovered plastics is published online in ScienceDirect and will be published in Marine Pollution Bulletin Volume 181 in August.

Timegate Instruments has the pleasure to be involved with this paper that highlights the important research topic of recovered plastics which were studied using Timegated® Raman spectroscopy. The publication shows the added value of time-gated (TG) Raman over continuous laser Raman for characterizing recovered plastics. Time-gated Raman reduces the effect of fluorescence, providing a concrete characterization of microplastics. More information about the paper is in the abstract below. Timegate's Application Specialist Bryan Heilala is one of the authors of this article alongside Anthony P. Kotula, Sara V. Orski, Kayla C. Brignac, and Jennifer M. Lynch.

Open access to the article is available until August 20th, 2022: Time-gated Raman spectroscopy of recovered plastics

Abstract

Raman spectroscopy is a powerful non-destructive technique for the identification and characterization of plastics, but a major shortcoming of this technique is that environmental weathering, dyes, and additives in the material can generate a strong fluorescence background that overwhelms the Raman scattering. Here, we demonstrate that time-gated Raman spectroscopy can be used to successfully reduce the fluorescence signal and measure Raman spectra of recovered plastics. Time-gating removes a significant amount of background signal from the Raman spectra such that the polymers and color additives can be identified using similar measurement times compared to continuous-wave Raman spectroscopy. Examples of this are shown for a small subset of samples recovered from Hawaiian marine environments and a nonweathered commercial plastic. Time-gated Raman spectroscopy can also be used to characterize samples that are black in color due to carbon-based additives like graphite, which can be challenging to characterize via other common vibrational spectroscopic techniques.

Download Picoraman M3 brochure for more information on Timegated® Raman spectroscopy.