EVOLVED GAS-ANALYSIS OF INORGANIC MATERIALS USING THERMOCHROMATOGRAPHY - MODEL INORGANIC SALTS AND PALAGONITE MARTIAN SOIL SIMULANTS

Evolved gas analyses are presented of several model inorganic salts an d Mars soil simulating palagonite minerals. The measurements are perfo rmed with a low-volume, thermal furnace, interfaced to a capillary gas chromatograph (GC) via a computer-controlled, pneumatic sample inlet device using pseudorandom injection and correlation analysis. The syst em, a thermochromatograph (ThGC), permits temperature-resolved, high-s peed GC analysis of the evolving components in the pyrolyzing sample's headspace. The ''information content'' performance of this inherently simpler system is comparable to that of TG/GC/MS and TG/GC/IR systems when similar materials are analyzed.