We have investigated the utility of a horizontal attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (HATR/FT-IR) for the analysis of fiber and textile blends. The identification of a blended textile can be accomplished by subtracting a reference spectrum of the textile's most abundant component, leading to a difference spectrum that infers the identity of the second constituent of the blended textile. Mathematical post-processing of the spectra employing discriminant analysis provided a useful statistical tool to confirm the fiber blend components.
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