Discrimination of Thermoplastic Polyesters by MALDI-TOF MS and Py-GC/MS

The aim of this work is to discriminate thermoplastic polyester-polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polybutylene terephthalate (PBT), and polytrimethylene terephthalate (PTT), which cannot be easily identified by many methods. Both matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) and pyrolysis gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) were applied to identify these polyesters owing to their analytical ability to determining polymers' chemical structure. The three thermoplastic polyesters can be easily distinguished by MALDI-TOF MS according to their different repeated units. Py-GC/MS was used to analyze their specific pyrolyzates. The three polyesters can be identified through their characteristic pyrolysis products as well.