Screening Analysis of Chemical Substances Contained in Recycled Plastics Using Thermal Desorption GC-MS

Abstract

Recycling of waste plastics is being considered as one of the measures to address the problem of environmental pollution caused by large-volume plastic waste. Meanwhile, there are growing concerns about the safety of chemical substances contained in the recycled plastics, and a simple screening analysis is desired. In this paper, thermal desorption GC-MS was employed as a screening analysis of chemical substances contained in the recycled plastics. Recycled plastics obtained from different origins were eluted with organic solvents, and resulting eluates were analyzed; as a result, different chromatograms characteristic of each origin were observed. To visualize amounts of chemical substances contained in the recycle plastics, it was possible to easily evaluate them by standardizing the obtained chromatogram. The screening analysis using thermal desorption GC-MS efficiently provided the characteristic chromatograms and information on the amounts of chemical substances, demonstrating the usefulness of this technique. In the future, by gathering more chromatograms, we aim to improve the reliability of screening analysis results and realize accurate risk assessments by combining this approach with other techniques.