Solid-state 13C and 15N NMR spectroscopy
was used to study the structure and thermochemistry of nylon-6,6. Experiments were performed on samples of
nylon-6,6 heated in the presence of
labeled adipic acid and hexamethylenediamine (HMD) monomers as well as
labeled bis(hexamethylenetriamine) (BHMT), a molecule previously implicated as a potential nylon
cross-linker. The uptake and
subsequent reaction of labeled materials were characterized by a
variety of solid-state NMR techniques.
Reaction of the central (α) nitrogen of BHMT to form an amide
occurs very rapidly. With time,
transamidation causes this position to become indistinguishable from
the bulk amide nitrogen in nylon.
Rotational-echo double resonance (REDOR), a solid-state NMR
experiment that permits the quantitative
measurement of 13C−15N labeled chemical
bonds, was used to detect the formation and breaking of
carbon−nitrogen bonds due to polymerization and transamidation. The
reaction of adipic acid and hexamethylenediamine (HMD) and the transamidation reaction between the resulting
oligomers and bulk nylon
were studied by heating nylon-6,6 in the presence of
[13C]adipic acid and [15N]HMD and
characterizing
the resulting polymers with REDOR. The combination of stable
isotope labeling and NMR spectroscopy
illustrated in this work should be applicable to the study of a wide
variety of polymers.