Different types of plastics are used for these diverse applications, but all plastic manufacturing has a few common raw material needs, including monomers and solvents. Plastic manufacturing workflows are designed to use all monomer input in the formation of the plastic polymer, and to remove all solvents from the final plastic product. However, residual levels of monomers and solvents often remain in the finished product.
Residual monomers and solvents can present health risks to end users or impact the performance of the final product. It is vital that plastic manufacturers have an easy method to prepare plastic samples for analysis, and analytical instruments that provide high throughput and the sensitivity required for the most stringent purity requirements.
This application note details the PerkinElmer GC 2400 System with Flame Ionization Detector (FID) for the analysis of residual solvents and monomers in plastics.