Qualitative Analysis of Maleic Anhydride Copolymer by Pyrolysis GC/MS-combined with Imide Derivatization

Abstract

Acid anhydride monomer plays an important role such as functioning as a cross-linking point in polymer by copolymerizing with a monomer having an α-olefin. It is important to identify the acid anhydride structure in order to understand the mechanism of function expression by mixed products. Pyrolysis GC/MS is a useful technique for structural characterization of polymeric materials. It is an effective method for estimating types of monomer that consist of polymer materials, such as insoluble polymers and composite materials. However, structural characterization of acid anhydride monomer from polymeric material is not possible by pyrolysis GC/MS because an acid anhydride monomer is fragmented as CO₂. In this study, we introduced a pretreatment method for derivatizing acid anhydride monomers with a primary amine and examined the method for characterizing the type of acid anhydride polymers by pyrolysis GC/MS. By combining imide derivatization using aniline and the pyrolysis GC/MS, we succeeded in obtaining the structural information of maleic anhydride monomer as a pyrolysis fragment of N-phenylmaleimide. Pyrolysis fragments containing copolymerization monomers were also detected. It is expected that the imide derivatization-pyrolysis GC/MS will enable discriminant analysis of acid anhydride polymers.