Hyphenated Techniques: Technical Solutions to Combine TGA with FTIR and GC/MS

Gal Openhaim, DAS, PerkinElmer, Hod Hasharon, ISRAEL

TGA (Thermo-Gravimetric Analyzer) measures the change in mass of a sample as the sample is heated, cooled or held at a constant (isothermal) temperature and inert or reactive atmosphere. The main problem in this type of analysis is that it says nothing about what has been evolved by the sample. This lack of knowledge has led to the development of the Hyphenation - the combination of TGA with FT-IR and/or MS and/or GC/MS. The hyphenation system allows the analyst to identify unknowns components in samples, do revesrse engineering, and many other options of analyses. Furtheremore, each part of the system (TGA, GC/MS, FT-IR)  can also work as stand alone.