Improved characterisation of materials using pyrolysis with GCxGC–TOF MS

Pyrolysis coupled with two-dimensional gas chromatography and time-of-flight mass spectrometry (Py–GCxGC–TOF MS) can be used for quality control of consumer products, including tyres, plastics and paper.

Pyrolysis involves the thermal degradation of a sample in the absence of oxygen to produce smaller molecules (or pyrolysates) that are more amenable to analysis by gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (GC–MS). It is a useful technique for the characterisation of solid samples as well as insoluble samples, which are difficult to introduce into a GC–MS system by any other approach.

In this study, we demonstrate how pyrolysis, combined with the increased separation capacity of GCxGC using INSIGHT^® flow modulation, coupled with highly-sensitive confident identification by BenchTOF2™ time-of-flight mass spectrometers (TOF MS), provides improved characterisation of materials.

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