एडवांस्ड केमिकल इंजीनियरिंग जर्नल

अमूर्त

TMAOH like Derivatising agents for pyrolysis of polymers

Subroto Das

Pyrolysis GCMS is one of the important methods to analyse any unknown polymer. Pyrolysis breaks the polymer to such a degree that sometimes it is difficult to figure out the polymer. Derivatising agent can help in breaking the polymer in a regulated fashion. Tetra methyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAOH) is known for hydrolysing esters and on further heating it converts the acid salts to its methyl esters releasing trimethyl amine. We have tried this reagent on various substrates like alkyds, polyesters, acrylic polymers. Various temperature conditions have been examined to see the products. Pyrolysis of polymers with and without TMAOH has been done. Experiments have been done to see what kind of products is formed. TMAOH when simply added to a polymer in presence of methanol and injected to GC is also known to convert oils and fats. This happens due to the temperature in the GC (approx. 350 C) injector port. In this study, this is checked in fats and oils and also extended for some polymers like alkyd and acrylic/meth acrylic acid polymers.