An analytical investigation of silane coupling agents on glass fibres

Pyrolysis gas chromatography coupled with FTIR (Py-GC/FTIR) has been applied to the investigation of silane treatment of E-Glass fibres. The thermal decomposition products are fractionated organofunctional groups from the coupling agent. The fragments from the coupling agent can be identified by FTIR. Moreover, for a qualitative analysis, a mixture of structurally similar coupling agents can be analysed using Py-GC/FTIR. Thus this technique is useful for the qualitative identification of coupling agents or mixtures of coupling agents on treated fibres.