Pyrolysis-GC/MS, A Powerful Analytical Tool for Additives and Polymers Characterization

Abstract

Analytical Pyrolysis technique hyphenated to GC/MS is used to obtain structural information of macromolecules. The composition and relative abundance of the pyrolysis products are characteristic for a given polymer and their determination allows the identification of materials that cannot be determined otherwise. In the present work different examples are presented in which different pyrolysis techniques are used, such as pulsed, fractional and sequential pyrolysis, working with polymer solutions, cold injection in split or narrow band mode or thermochemolysis. Specially useful is serial pyrolysis which is performed in two or more steps. Initially, volatile compounds are thermally extracted from the sample at a relatively low temperature (thermal desorption), and then the same sample is pyrolyzed at a higher temperature.