Hydrogenation of low‐molar‐mass,OH‐telechelic polybutadienes. II. Nuclear magnetic resonance and infrared spectrometric determination of hydroxyl end groups before and after hydrogenation by diimide

¹H nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H‐NMR), ¹³C‐NMR, and infrared spectroscopies were used to determine concentrations (c_OH, in mmol/g) of the secondary hydroxyl end groups in the low‐molar‐mass, OH‐telechelic polybutadienes, and their hydrogenated analogs. Mean OH‐functionality (f_OH ≤ 2), that is, an average number of OH groups per one polymer chain, was calculated from c_OH for each sample and each method, and the results were compared with those obtained by a conventional acetic anhydride titration method. It has been found that with molar masses of the samples studied (2310 to 3410 g/mol), the differences between individual spectrometric methods are usually not higher than approximately 10%, which corresponds to an expected relative experimental error. Certain differences in f_OH between individual methods are discussed. No systematic change of f_OH after virtually total hydrogenation of the olefinic double bonds of the polymeric substrate by diimide was observed. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 74: 3214–3224, 1999