Dr. Benjamín Monrabal is a chemical engineer and polymer scientist widely recognized for his contributions to polyolefin characterization. He earned his degree in Chemical Engineering from the Instituto Químico de Sarriá in Barcelona and completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He spent more than two decades at The Dow Chemical Company, where he worked in R&D and was named Scientist for his technical contributions to the polyolefin business.

In 1992, Dr. Monrabal founded Polymer Char, a company dedicated to the development of advanced analytical technologies for polymer characterization, where he led research and innovation efforts. He is best known for co-developing influential crystallization-based techniques such as CRYSTAF and CEF, which have become standard tools in the analysis of polyethylene and polypropylene. Dr. Monrabal is also a co-founder of the International Conference on Polyolefin Characterization (ICPC), reinforcing his long-standing role as a leader and reference figure in the global polyolefin characterization community.

Application Notes:

Filtration of Polymer Solutions and Carbon Black Removal Prior to a GPC Analysis

PREP C20 by Composition or Molar Mass

Gel Permeation Chromatography for Quality Control

Soluble Fraction Analysis for Quality Control

Column-based Preparative Fractionation

Polyolefin Characterization by High-temperature Adsorption Liquid Chromatography (SGIC and TGIC)

Automated Soluble Fraction Analysis in Polypropylene

GPC instrument with integrated Infrared Detector IR5 MCT for Polyolefin Analysis

Crystallization Elution Fractionation (CEF) in Polyolefins

Advantages of Infrared Detection in GPC/SEC Analysis of Polyolefins

Engineering Advances in High Temperature GPC/SEC Instrumentation

Automated Cross-fractionation Chromatography (CFC)

High-Temperature GPC Analysis of Polyolefins with IR

Articles:

Analysis of the Chemical Composition Distribution in Semicrystalline Polymers: Crystallization Analysis Techniques- Temperature-Rising Elution Fractionation, Crystallization Analysis Fractionation, Dynamic Crystallization, Crystallization Elution Fractionation and Cross-Fractionation Chromatography

Newly Developed Polymer Resins are More Challenging to Control in Production Plants

A Higher Standard in Gel Permeation Chromatography Analysis for Polyolefins

Soluble Fraction Analysis for Quality Control

Assessment of the Co-crystallization of Ethylene/1-Octene Copolymer Blends by CRYSTAF and TREF

Separation of Ethylene-Propylene Copolymers by Crystallization and Adsorption Mechanisms. A Journey Inside the Analytical Techniques

Separation of Polypropylene Polymers by Crystallization and Adsorption Techniques

Polyolefin Characterization: Recent Advances in Separation Techniques

Chemical Composition Separation of EP Copolymers by CEF and HT-SGIC: Crystallization versus Adsorption

Advances in Thermal Gradient Interaction Chromatography and Crystallization Techniques for Composition Analysis in Polyolefins

Poly(propylene) Heterophasic Copolymers: Molecular Structure Analysis through Fractionation Techniques

Characterization of Chemical Composition along the Molar Mass Distribution in Polyolefin Copolymers by GPC Using a Modern Filter-Based IR Detector

Filter-based infrared detectors for high-temperature size exclusion chromatography analysis of polyolefins: calibration with a small number of standards and error analysis.

Crystallization Elution Fractionation and Thermal Gradient Interaction Chromatography. Techniques Comparison.

Characterization of Polypropylene–Polyethylene blends by Temperature Rising Elution and Crystallization Analysis Fractionation

Advances in Crystallization Elution Fractionation

Application of a Multiple Linear Regression Model to Fixed Bands IR Detector Data in GPC-IR Analysis of Polyolefins

Phase Structure and Crystallization Behavior of Polypropylene in-Reactor Alloys: Insights from Both Inter- and Intramolecular Compositional Heterogeneity

Synthesis and Characterization of Ethylene/Propylene Copolymers in the Whole Composition Range

Crystallization Elution Fractionation. A New Separation Process for Polyolefin Resins

Development of an Automated Cross-Fractionation Apparatus (TREF-GPC) for a Full Characterization of the Bivariate Distribution of Polyolefins

Microstructure Characterization of Polyolefins. TREF and CRYSTAF. Progress in Olefin Polymerization Catalysts and Polyolefin Materials

Effect of molecular weight and average comonomer content on the Crystallization Analysis Fractionation (CRYSTAF) of ethylene α-olefin copolymers

Performance of Crystallization Analysis Fractionation and Preparative Fractionation on the Characterization of γ-Irradiated Low-Density Polyethylene

Crystallizability of Ethylene Homopolymers by Crystallization Analysis Fractionation

Analysis of Polyolefin blends by Crystallization Analysis Fractionation

TREF and CRYSTAF technologies for Polymer Characterization

Characterization of homogeneous ethylene/1-octene copolymers made with a single-site catalyst. CRYSTAF analysis and calibration

Polyolefin analysis by single-step Crystallization Fractionation

Crystallization analysis fractionation of poly(ethylene-co-1-octene) made with single-site-type catalysts: a mathematical model for the dependence of composition distribution on molecular weight

Chemical Composition Distribution in Complex Polyolefin Resins. Characterization of Blends and Dual reactor (single site-Ziegler type) resins by CRYSTAF methods.

Chemical Composition Distribution Analysis in Polyolefins: Introduction to Crystallization Analysis Fractionation

CRYSTAF: A new approach to the Composition Analysis of Semicrystalline polymers

Crystallization Analysis Fractionation: A new technique for the analysis of branching distribution in polyolefins

Posters:

Improved temperature calibration for CCD in solution-based separation techniques

Chemical composition techniques can reveal critical information on the microstructure of polyolefins beyond their molar mass distribution (MMD).

Supporting the sustainability of polyolefins: developing analytical methods for recycled materials

Advances in Dynamic Crystallization technique for the characterization of the Chemical Composition Distribution.

Automatic differential capillary viscometer for low temperature measurement of PET and other polymers.

GPC-IR analysis of PET and PE-PET blends, a new application field of filter-based IR detector.

Moving from TCB to oDCB in CRYSTEX QC

A study to determine the effect of sample filtration on the molecular weight distributions of different polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) resins.

Characterization of Ethylene Vinyl Acetate copolymers by chemical composition distribution and molar mass distribution techniques

Assessing the co-crystallization on blends of ethylene 1-octene copolymers by CRYSTAF

Analysis of UHMWPE and Bimodal HDPE by Gel Permeation Chromatography in a quality control environment

A data processing method to recover the MMD of the individual components in PP-PE binary mixtures, by using the data collected at multiple bands by a filter-based IR detector coupled to a high temperature GPC instrument.

Advanced data processing for dual-detector GPC-QC, Band-broadening correction method based on effective volume offset

Infrared detection in high temperature GPC/SEC of Polyolefins

GPC analysis at different flow rates to overcome shear degradation

Column-based preparative fractionation

Automated analysis of the soluble fraction in PP resins by a modified TREF technique

Improvements in Sample Preparation of Polyolefins to prevent Polymer Degradation prior to GPC/SEC and CEF analysis

Comparison of FTIR and Modern Filter-based IR Detection coupled to HT-GPC for Short Chain Branching and Molar Mass Distribution

Applications of the Integrated IR5 MCT Detector in GPC/SEC with Improved Sensitivity and Stability for Polyolefin Analysis

Advances in Polyolefin Characterization – CFC and HT-HPLC Techniques

Simplified CRYSTEX for the Analysis of Xylene Solubles in Polypropylene

Improved Detection in GPC-SEC of Polyolefins by integrated Infrared Detector

High Temperature HPLC for Polyolefin Characterization

Development of a MCT-IR Detector for GPC-SEC Analysis in PE