Determination of the degree of crystallinity of poly(vinyl alcohol) by FTIR spectroscopy

Quantitative correlations between the intensity of the crystalline band at 1144 cm(-1) (A (1144)) normalized to the intensity of the C-O stretching band at 1094 cm(-1) (A (1094)) in IR spectra of PVA films and the degree of crystallinity (alpha) of these films measured by an x-ray diffraction method were investigated. It was found that alpha and A (1144)/A (1094) were related by the linear dependence alpha (%) = a + b(A (1144)/A (1094)) with correlation coefficient 0.999 for alpha values in the range 18-60%.