Time-dependent FTIR microscopy for mechanism investigations and kinetic measurements in interfacial polymerisation: a microporous polymer film study

Interfacial polymerisation plays a pivotal role in the chemical industry and academic research but acquiring chemical insights into the formation of ultra-thin films remains challenging. The real-time characterisation of the interfacial polymerization process is demonstrated here by using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR)-mapping spectroscopy with microscopy. The entire formation process of microporous polyarylate films was studied using this approach to reveal the mechanism and measure reaction kinetics, which had not yet been established. Our key findings reveal that the mechanism involves a three-stage reaction and allow the first measurement of the reaction rate constants with different molecular backbones.