Determination of oxygen in organosilicon polymers and organic materials by inert-gas fusion with a platinum-carbon converter

Organosilicon polymers have attracted considerable attention as a new class of functional polymers of the next generation because of their unique electronic and optical properties originating from the delocalization of sigma-sigma* conjugated electrons along the Si-Si main chain of polysilane. Thus, for these polymers, oxygen is the most remarkable impurity. Nevertheless, the determination of oxygen in any organic material is extremely difficult. Especially, for oraganosilicon compounds, conventional methods do not give good results. In this study we investigated the reason for the low recoveries of organosilicon compounds by several kinds of determination methods, and developed a new determination method involving on inert-gas fusion equipped converter, which includes platinum-carbon. According to our method, oxygen in organosilicon polymers can be determined quantitatively. We confirmed that our new method is applicable not only to organosilicon materials, but also to organic and organometallic compounds as well as inorganic materials.