Research Information System
International Journal of Polymer Analysis and Characterization, vol.31, no.2, pp.184-199, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
Herein, the practicability of the attenuated total reflectance-mid infrared (ATR-MIR) technique combined with chemometrics was reported for the expeditious characterization and discrimination of the papers based on their fiber contents. In accordance with this purpose, twenty-six paper samples (n = 26) with different contents were prepared from three different fiber sources (long fiber, short fiber, and deinked fiber), and they were studied using ATR-MIR spectroscopy allied with principal component analysis (PCA), hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA), linear discriminant analysis (LDA), and soft independent modeling of class analogies (SIMCA). The mechanical characteristics [weight (g), grammage (g.m−2), thickness (mm), tensile index (Nm.g−1), breaking length (km), moisture absorption (%), brightness (R457), whiteness and yellowness degree (E313)] of the samples were also determined and evaluated. The spectra were obtained in the wavenumber region of 4000–650 cm−1 and up to 30 wavenumber regions related to the components of papers were analyzed for chemometrics. A total of 100% of paper samples from different groups could be correctly classified by the SIMCA model with an accuracy of 95%. As well, a total of 94.87% of the samples were acceptably classified by the LDA model with an accuracy of 95%. Consequently, the developed chemometrics models based on ATR–MIR data could overcome many problems encountered in routine standard methods for the mechanical characteristics in practice because they decrease or eliminate the usage of destructive methods, could be utilized by unqualified persons, and are significantly faster.