General conclusions are made based on the results of experimental and theoretical investigations of the decomposition kinetics of various polymeric materials in a wide range of heating rates. It was found that the decomposition process of the investigated materials proceeds within confined temperature intervals. Kinetic equations are suggested to describe the thermal decomposition processes of polymers and natural coals, based on the characteristic revealed.
Thermal decomposition ranges of polymeric materialsThe thermal decomposition kinetics of polymeric materials with different chemical compositions and natural coals have been studied in a wide range of heating rates b = dT/dt by DTA [1][2][3]. They demonstrated that each material investigated has a characteristic temperature range in which the thermal decomposition process takes place. Figure 1 represents the typical position of TG curve groups in these ranges, and the limits are marked by lines. The lower limit cooo(7-) corresponds to the hypothetical conditions of equilibrium heating. The ordinates of the curve co~(T) are determined for each fixed temperature T as the asymptotical limit of co=(T):where co is the relative mass of sample residue = M/M 0 and t is the observation time of the sample at monotonous heating.The curve cooo(T) characterizes the observation results at the lowest heating rates allowing to establish the chemical equilibrium between the starting material and the decomposition products. In practice, the points of the lower limit are obtained by means of a series of isothermal studies of the material up to the total stop of mass loss at each given temperature. The characteristic points of the lower limiting curve are the