Use of Pyrolysis/Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry in Environmental Analysis

Abstract

In general, chemists resort to pyrolysis/gas chromatography (PY/GC) and pyrolysis/gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (PY/GC/MS) when they exhaust all other conventional methods of gas chromatography or mass spectrometry. It is well known that polar and nonvolatile high-molecular-weight chemicals are not amenable to conventional gas chromatography and/or mass spectrometry. However, using controlled thermal degradation, these chemicals often yield volatile and gas chromatographable products. Although this technique has been used in several analytical fields, such as the analysis of synthetic and biological polymers, oil shales, petroleum, and others, as described by May, Pearson, and Scothern,⁽¹⁾ its use for environmental analysis is still limited. However, recently this technique was employed for the analysis of some environmental samples. This chapter describes the technique of this analysis and outlines some of the recent applications for the analysis of (1) bound humic substances from soil samples.