Prescreening of Phthalic Esters Contained in PVC Products by FTIR

In the revised RoHS Directive (RoHS 2.0), four types of phthalic esters were added to the list of regulated substances in July 2019. Although GC-MS is generally used, soft PVCs and certain other products include materials with high concentrations of phthalic esters, and if these are analyzed by GC-MS, they may place an excessive load on the column used. Because FTIR enables quick spectrum measurement without pretreatment, it is suitable for determining whether samples contain high or low concentrations of phthalic esters.