Polyvinyl chloride is a widely used polymer. Additives are key to improving its properties and extending its lifetime, as it is brittle and inflexible in its pure form. In addition to plasticizers and dyes, antioxidants are added to the polymer to prevent oxidative degradation. In my thesis I optimised the sample preparation for the determination of two antioxidants in PVC; Irganox 1076, which is the primary antioxidant, and Irgafos 168, which is the secondary antioxidant. The samples were dissolved in a mixture of ACN and MQ and precipitated with THF. I used a liquid chromatograph with UV-VIS detector for the analysis. Finally, I determined the proportion of the primary antioxidant (Irganox 1076) in the plastic folder sample by the standard addition method and found that the proportion was one order of magnitude lower than reported in the literature.
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