Do you need to determine hydroxyl value (HOV)? Do you find that traditional methods to determine HOV are time-consuming and rank poorly in their environmental impact and sustainability institutional standards? If so, you are not alone. We have been often approached with problems such as this to see if benchtop NMR can be used to modernize and provide a potential solution.
At Nanalysis, our main focus is democratizing the use of NMR spectroscopy for both underserved users – like academic teaching and small and medium-size research companies – and developing and validating new methods where NMR Spectroscopy, although previously overlooked, can provide value. While an important metric in many applications, including pharmaceuticals, personal care and cosmetics, and food analysis, HOV is also pivotal for materials quantification and quality control (QC), such as in the manufacturing process of polyurethanes.
The molecular weight of the polyol, and corresponding ratio can affect the flexibility of the final polymer, and are thus critical to understand, predict and maintain polyurethane properties. The most common traditional method requires the use of several chemicals for sample preparation, followed by reflux and titrations to determine the number. We have adapted method for the use of fluorine-19 benchtop NMR spectroscopy for rapid HOV determination and will present the details of this work at the American Chemistry Council’s Polyurethanes Technical Conference in Orlando, FL Oct 5-7.