2. Total amount of volatiles and their chemical compositions were determined by collecting the volatiles formed during thermal degradation of samples on Tenax TA adsorbent tubes. All the volatile samples were collected by thermally degrading the samples in TGA in air under isothermal conditions at 800 o C for 10 minutes. We tried several other methods to thermally degrade the samples to simulate the burning conditions but the reproducibility of the results and accuracy in controlling the degradation parameters made this method the most reliable and reproducible. The gas samples collected on Tenax adsorbent tubes were then analysed by thermally desorbing them in Unity 2 Thermal Desorber (TD) Instrument from Mark International Ltd. Most reproducible results were obtained when the adsorbent tubes were desorbed for 10 minutes at 270°C. The cold trap temperature was kept at -10°C with a split ratio of 1:100. Gas Chromatography (GC) and Mass Spectroscopy (MS)were used to analyse the desorbed gases. The analysis of volatiles was done using both Finnigan Polaris Q, an ion trap type MS and Finnigan Trace, a quadrupole type of MS. GC-column used for the separation and analysis of volatiles was the Rtx-5 Amine column, 60m long and ID and OD of 0.25 mm and 0.39mm and a 5m EZ guard for the separation of volatiles. All analyses were run for 55 minutes at a rate of 5 o C/min after ramping to 300 o C at a rate of 5 o C/min. The initial temperature at which the analyses began was 38 o C.