Studies Of The Combustion Products Of Polymeric Materials Using New Analytical Techniques.

Every year about 1,000 people in the United Kingdom lose their lives because of fire. Impairment of escape caused by inhalation of toxic fire gases has been implicated in many of these deaths. Many fire gases, when inhaled, cause a variety of physiological and behavioral effects which delay escape and thus may lead to further inhalation of fatal concentrations of gases. The ability to identify and quantify the chemical species present in the fire atmosphere is therefore critical to any study of combustion toxicology. Having surveyed the existing techniques available for the identification of chemical species likely to be present in a fire atmosphere, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry is recommended as the most powerful tool available, at the present time, because Felts ability to separate, identify and quantify many of the species present. If continuous analysis of the atmosphere is required, analysis of oxygen and the oxides of carbon is recommended using paramagnetic and infra-red analyzers respectively. Methods of sampling fire gases in a form suitable for subsequent analysis by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry are reviewed and a system based on evacuated glass vessels and a liquid nitrogen refrigerated trap is recommended; the efficiency of the method is investigated particularly regarding storage and transportation OL samples. Problems with existing analytical techniques in determining the presence of hydrogen cyanide have prompted the development of an original method of analysis for both hydrogen cyanide and other nitrogen-containing compounds based on a chemiluminescence analyzer linked to the flame ionization detector of the gas chromatograph, used in the GC/MS system. The versatility of the sampling, storage and analysis system to handle a wide range of different atmospheres created from both small-scale laboratory experiments and large-scale fire tests is assessed with observations about its limitations. Details of valuable work for future studies are given. (i) While registered for the degree of Master of Philosophy, I have not been registered as a candidate for any other award of the CNAA or any University during this research programme. The material contained in this thesis is entirely my own work and has not been used in any other Submission for an academic award.