Study of the reaction kinetics of the thermal degradation of polymer

• Main Author: Blazek, Jaroslav
• Format: Others
• Published: 2005
• Online Access: http://oatao.univ-toulouse.fr/7407/1/blazek.pdf

The present work on pyrolysis of polymers was developed on laboratory scale. A thermogravimetric apparatus connected to FTIR spectrometer was used, the outputs of analyses were a set of mass loss data correlated with heating rates and a set of spectra corresponding to different moments of the degradation process. Kinetic parameters (Ea and A) were calculated by the means of the Popescu's variant of the Ozawa-Flynn-Wall integral method. A good agreement was found between calculated values and referential kinetic parameters. Another method, 'fitting' experimental curves by the means of a special MatLab programs using differential equations solvers, was applied in the case of several polymers. It was used in the study of pyrolysis of individual polymers and their mixtures, and it did - together with examination of results from FTIR analysis - yield results that were applied on industrial niveau. The polymers used were two “natural polymers”, lignin and cellulose, and industry polymers: PVC, EVA, PS. In comparisons with reference kinetic parameters, a good accordance was observed in most cases. Principal results for the polymer examined most in detail, i. e. EVA (e.g. with 12 % of VA in molecules; 1-30 K.min-1), are: Ea = 200 kJ.mol-1 for the 1st degradation step and Ea = 271 kJ.mol-1 for the 2nd degradation step.