Easy Analysis of Dissolved Polymers in Seawater by Pyrolysis

The presence of plastics in seawater is a major environmental concern and is attracting widespread media attention.

It’s not just ‘visible’ plastics that cause problems: dissolved polymers from industrial processes and commercial waste are also a significant pollutant. They provide an additional challenge to analysts because they cannot be extracted using traditional methods such as purge and trap or headspace.

The CDS-6000 analytical pyrolyser uses advanced controlled heating to breakdown the dissolved polymers to volatile compounds suitable for GCMS analysis and identification using bespoke polymer and additive libraries.

The new systems offer a number of other new features for the laboratory. They can be configured for standard and slow rate pyrolysis, reactant gas pyrolysis (O2, H2, or gas of any choice), EGA studies, high pressure pyrolysis with reactant gas and elevated pressure through to steam pyrolysis.

CDS pyrolysers employ resistively heated filaments ensuring there are no secondary pyrolysis fragments and enable 10 step temperature analysis to 1400°C, slow heating studies, and pyrotomy. A single shot autoinjector, drop in sample chamber (DISC), enhances ease of use.

For more information visit www.analytix.co.uk/applications/.