It is a useful tool to determine the formation
of new or disappearance of functional groups. So deg-
radation products, chemical moieties incorporated into the polymer molecules such as branches, co-monomers,
unsaturation and presence of additives such as antioxi-
dants can be determined by this technique. Control
spectra of polymer film (not treated with microbes) dis-
played a number of peaks reflecting the complex nature
of the LDPE (Fig. 4a)