Evolved gas composition monitoring by repetitive injection gas chromatography

Performance characteristics and applications of a small volume gas chromatograph oven are described. Heating and cooling properties of the apparatus are evaluated and examples are given illustrating the advantages of greatly reducing the air bath volume surrounding fused silica columns. Fast heating and cooling of the oven permit it to be employed for repetitive injection analyses. By using fast gas chromatography separations to achieve short assay cycle times, the apparatus can be employed for on-line species-specific gas stream composition monitoring when volatile species concentrations vary on time scales of a few minutes or longer. This capability facilitates repeated sampling and fast gas chromatographic separations of volatile product mixtures produced during thermal analyses. Applications of repetitive injection gas chromatography-mass spectrometry evolved gas analyses to monitoring purge gas effluent streams containing volatile acid catalyzed polymer cracking products are described. The influence of thermal analysis and chromatographic experimental parameters on effluent sampling frequency are delineated.