Hyphenation of Curie-point-pyrolysis high-resolution gas chromatography with several spectroscopic methods for the analysis of cured epoxy resins

The coupling of Curie-point pyrolysis (Py) with gas chromatography (GC) and mass spectrometry (MS) or Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) has been widely reported. The approach reported in this paper combines chromatographic separation with eluent monitoring by use of three different spectroscopic detectors (MS, FTIR and Atomic Emission Detector AED]). The features of these detectors, with different selectivities, are shown for the analysis of cured epoxy resins. Besides characterisation of major resin constituents by identification of the pyrolysis products, the usefulness of the AED is also revealed by the detection of minor compounds (such as coupling agents) in cured epoxy resins.