An investigation of the thermal degradation of poly(ethylene glycol)

The products from the thermal degradation of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) in a nitrogen atmosphere have been studied by GC/MS. The results of these studies show that PEG degrades in nitrogen by a series of competitive intermolecular and intramolecular processes. Following the homolytic cleavage of the CC or CO bonds, disproportionation and hydrogen abstraction reactions can be used to explain the observed thermal decomposition products. This proposed mechanism is compared with the existing PEG thermal decomposition literature.