Quantitative determination of volatiles in polymers and quality control of recycled materials by static headspace techniques

A presentation is given of headspace (HS) extraction and headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) techniques and their combination with multiple headspace (MHS) extraction to enable quantitative determination of volatiles in solid polymer matrixes. As an example, the development of HS, HS-SPME, and MHS-SPME methods for extraction of volatiles from thermo-oxidized and/or recycled polyamide 6.6 is reviewed with special focus on the problems encountered when extracting analytes from solid-sample matrixes including excessively long equilibrium times and adsorption of analytes to the sample matrix. Examples are also given of the application of HS-SPME in quality control of recycled materials, in durability assessment of polymeric materials and in degradation studies.