TGA-GC-MS quantitative analysis of phosphorus-end capped functional polymers in bulk and ultrathin films

Compared to the common techniques, namely NMR spectroscopy and ICP-MS, no sample pretreatments are required. Consequently, polymeric films supported on inert substrates can be directly analyzed. The quantitative calibration, obtained for bulk materials, was demonstrated to be accurate also for films of different thickness. In this frame, the method revealed highly sensitive thus allowing the phosphorous determination even in ultrathin films with thickness of few tens of nanometers.

An hyphenated method based on thermal gravimetric, gas chromatographic and mass spectrometric analyses (TGA-GC-MS) is proposed for the quantitative analysis of diethylphosphate-end capped polymers with varying chain length, in bulk and as ultra thin film. The method fully calibrated and validated, revealed a powerful and affordable tool in the determination of the amount of phosphorous in polymeric samples but also it allows the determination of the number of repeating units per chain end.