Patent ID: 8796033
Filing Date: 2014-08-05
Classification: G01N,Y10T

Abstract:
1. A method of determining a previously unknown concentration of a known additive material in a polymer material by analyzing a plurality of samples of the polymer material containing respective known concentrations of the additive material, the method comprising: placing a pellet of one of the samples of the polymer material containing one of the known concentrations of the additive material, the additive material being different from the polymer material, on a face of a substrate, wherein the face of the substrate is one of silver and gold; disposing an organic solvent, which dissolves the additive material contained in the pellet of the polymer material, on the pellet of the polymer material and between the face of the substrate and the pellet of the polymer material; maintaining the organic solvent between the face of the substrate and the pellet of the polymer material at room temperature and dissolving some of the additive material from the pellet of the polymer material in the organic solvent; removing the pellet of the polymer material from the face of the substrate, leaving a residue of the additive material that has been dissolved in the organic solvent on the face of the substrate; subjecting the residue of the additive material that has been left on the face of the substrate to time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry and correlating results of the time-of-flight secondary mass spectrometry with the known concentration of the additive material of the one of the samples of the polymer material that has been analyzed; and repeating the foregoing steps for each of the samples of the polymer material with known concentrations of the additive material and producing a relationship between the results of the time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry for the samples of the polymer material and concentrations of the additive material in the samples of the polymer material with the known concentrations, for determination of the previously unknown concentration of the additive material in the polymer material.