stantial attention is pyrolysis-gas chromatography (Py-GC). As the name suggests this technique uses
gas chromatography to separate the breakdown products of the sample which have been produced by
carefully controlled pyrolysis. The pyrogram thus obtained will generally show a complex pattern of
peaks which may be used for both qualitative and quantitative analyses in the ways discussed in section
4.3.1. Identification of the peaks present in the pyrogram has been carried out for some time by standard
GS-MS procedures. However, more recently, with the development of FT-IR
Figure 11.22
(a) Py-GC trace for polystyrene.
(b) FT-IR spectrum of 'peak A' identifying it as styrene.
(Courtesy of P. J. Haines, Kingston University).