Thermal extraction/desorption-gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy: A powerful tool for analyzing the degradation and decomposition of polymers

Due to the high molecular weights the analysis of polymers is difficult to carry out. Their dissolution is usually limited and the vapor pressure is very low. However, the degradation of a polymer leads usually to smaller compounds which then enable volatile analysis to aid in the characterization of the degradation or decomposition mechanism. The type and the amount of these smaller degradation products is characteristic for the momentary stage of the degradation process. With thermal desorption coupled to gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (TDS-GC-MS) the polymers can be heated from ambient temperatures to approximately 300 °C. During the heating process small volatile products with a molecular mass up to 350 - 400 m/z were first cryogenic trapping, reheated under controlled conditions and finally separated through a chromatographic column and identified with mass spectrometry. For instance clear differences in the released volatile species of Polypropylene (PP) can be observed depending on the progress of accelerated aging. In combination with a Thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) the samples can be heated up to 1000 °C under inert as well oxidative atmosphere. This leads to a complete thermal-pyrolytic or thermo-oxidative degradation of the whole material and a release of degradation fragments over a range of Mw. These fragments enable conclusions for the underlying degradation or decomposition pathways. For coupling to GC-MS a solid-phase adsorption agent can be coupled to the exhaust of the TGA. This adsorption agent is usually a PDMS species that is capable to adsorb compounds with a wide range of polarities. After the thermal extraction the solid-phase adsorption agent will be analyzed by TDS-GC-MS. Therefore, it is possible to determine the species and amounts of the released complex thermal or thermo-oxidative degradation products in detail. This approach offers overall advantageous over existing volatile analytical methods. Thus, it was possible to determine new thermal and thermo-oxidative degradation mechanism pathways of a well-known material like Polyamide 66 (PA 66). Further example is the unique analysis of small polymer particles, which can be identified and quantified in complex environmental samples. This is our current focus of R&D activities within the framework of the analysis of microplastics in the environment. In the present work we will present a new, automatized set up of this method.