Pyrolytic techniques

Pyrolytic techniques, especially those used in conjunction with gas chromatography, are a very useful tool for elucidating the structure of macromolecules. These methods have not only proven a powerful tool in the qualitative characterization of the gross structure, but have also found an increasing number of applications for the quantitative analysis of copolymeric systems. Recent studies indicating that the shape of the pyrogram is influenced by structural characteristics such as the degree of branching or crosslinking, stereoregularity, and the presence of blocks or grafts in copolymeric systems opens up new avenues for pyrolytic techniques in studios of the ultimate arrangement of monomeric units within the polymer chain.