Plastic Material that will not fluoresce at a wave length of 500 nanometers

I have an application where our part requires no fluorescence at

480-530 nanmoeters under an array of LED lights. We currently use a styrene co-polymer that has worked in the past, but recently has failed. We are chasing down the root cause with no luck. My question is this:

1 - What will cause a material to not fluoresce?

2 - Does anyone know of alternate materials?

Thank you very much for your response!

Chris

Reply to
chris
Loading thread data ...

Since fluorescence can be detected down to very low levels, how particular do you need to be? Is this fluorescence visible to the naked eye just with a detector? What kind of detector?

Fluorescence is the absorption of a photon at a certain wavelength, followed by remittance of light at a longer wavelength. Can you eliminate the shorter wavelengths that are exciting the polymer in the first place?

If the styreen copolymer used to work, I would really hammer on that to find our what is different between the good and bad lots. Don't look at the big stuff but rather at the trace elements. The suppliers aren't going to tell you about any changes that they make to those, since they figure you are really only interested in the styrene copolymer.

John Aspen Research, -

formatting link
"Turning Questions into Answers"

Opinions expressed herein are my own and may not represent those of my employer.

Reply to
john.spevacek

I suspect an optical brightener has been added to the copolymer you have been using. Ask the manufacturer. Blue pigments and optical brighteners are often added to plastics and fibers to make them look whiter. Frank

Reply to
Frank

You are asking the wrong question. What you want to know is what materials fluorse and how do we avoid them.

The answer (in general) is conjugated bonds. Your system must not be that sensitive or you would never have had acceptable performance with polystyrene. Avoid ring structures and double bonds. Stress toyour supplies you want a "clean" product. No brighteners, no bluing agents, and unless you really need them no organic stablizers.

Reply to
Joseki

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.