Thermal decomposition processes in aromatic amine-based polybenzoxazines investigated by TGA and GC-MS

Three different aromatic amine-based polybenzoxazines are subjected to thermal decomposition in a thermogravimetric analyzer. The degradation products, which are volatile compounds evaporating out of the furnace as gases, are trapped and analyzed further by a gas chromatograph which is coupled with a mass selective detector (GC-MS). All the degradation products are separated by GC and come out at different retention times, as seen in the total ion chromatogram. All the compound's mass are selectively identified by MS. The chromatograms are divided into two regions; the low column temperature region containing low molecular weight and highly volatile compounds, and the high column temperature region containing higher molecular weight and less volatile compounds. The evolved gas analysis performed by GC-MS allows us to identify the molecular weight and also the structure of the volatiles. This information is then used to illustrate the processes occurring during the thermal decomposition of aromatic amine-based polybenzoxazines. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.