[mewrox99]

As a high school project I plan on visiting the local uni and seeing if I can analyze the pyrolysis products of paper and see how much polycyclic hydrocarbons are comming off.

With GC/MS will I be able to find what compounds are present and how much?

Thanks?

[marquis]

GC/MS can detect some of the pyrolysis products.

Don't know how you plan to pyrolyze the paper.  One way is to heat in a test tube and analyze the liquid that comes off.  Often, this is done by dissolving the pyrolysate in a solvent and injecting the solvent (after filtration) into a GC or GC/MS. 

There is a different route that might be easier.  There is an pyrolyzer accesory for GC. You put a small amount of sample (usually in the milligram range) into the pyrolyzer.  The pyrolyzer takes the sample through a thermal temperature program that takes the pyrolysis gases directly to the GC or GC/MS.  One problem is that the pyrolyzer accessory is relatively hard to find.

A note about pyrolysis analysis.  The samples tend to be dirty.  It is usually better to try them on a GC before trying them on a GC/MS.  Work out the analysis details on the GC first.  If you try pyrolysis directly on the GC/MS, you could damage the instrument (well, at least require instrument cleaning).  This won't make the college or university happy.