Two-dimensional (2D) Chemiluminescence (CL) correlation spectroscopy for studying thermal oxidation of isotactic polypropylene (iPP)

• Chemiluminescence spectra of polypropylene were captured during the thermal oxidation.
• 2D correlation analysis revealed detailed mechanism of the thermodynamics.
• The reaction generates carbonyl species followed by subsequent production of different 1O2 species.

Application of the two-dimensional (2D) correlation spectroscopy is extended to Chemiluminescence (CL) spectra of isotactic polypropylene (iPP) under thermally induced oxidation. Upon heating, the polymer chains of the iPP undergoes scissoring and fragmentation to develop several intermediates. While different chemical species provides the emission at different wavelength regions, entire feature of the time-dependent CL spectra of the iPP samples were complicated by the presence of overlapped contributions from singlet oxygen (1O2) and carbonyl species within sample. 2D correlation spectra showed notable enhancement of the spectral resolution to provide penetrating insight into the thermodynamics of the polymer system. For example, the, oxidation induce scissoring and fragmentation of the polymer chains to develop the carbonyl group. Further reaction results in the consumption of the carbonyl species and subsequent production of different 1O2 species each developed in different manner. Consequently, key information on the thermal oxidation can be extracted in a surprisingly simple manner without any analytical expression for the actual response curves of spectral intensity signals during the reaction.