Thermal Degradation Behavior and Kinetics of 3D Porous Polycarbonate Monoliths

Abstract

The thermal degradation behavior and kinetics are important to understand the nature of polymers. In this work, the thermal degradation behavior and kinetics of polycarbonate (PC) monoliths with a three dimension (3D) continuous interconnected porous structure is investigated. Thermogravimetric analysis reveals that the thermal stability of the PC monoliths shows a significant reduction compared to pristine PC due to its 3D porous structure, which drastically increases the heating surface area during the thermal degradation process. An interesting second degradation stage at 480–550 °C is observed for PC monoliths from the barrier effect formed by the collapse and coalescence of the porous structure at high temperature, which is further confirmed by volatile and solid char analyses. The kinetic analysis suggests that the PC monolith shows a low degradation activation energy (Eα ) at the first degradation stage, which increases rapidly and goes beyond the Eα of pristine PC at the second degradation stage.

Superelastic and Durable Hierarchical Porous Thermoplastic Polyurethane Monolith with Excellent Hydrophobicity for Highly Efficient Oil/Water Separation

“…In recent years, frequently occurring oil spillage and chemical leakage events on a global scale, causing nearly irreversible damage to the ecological environment and human health, have aroused extensive concern of government worldwide. − It is thus urgently needed to develop high-efficient technologies or materials for controlling and even reusing the leaked oils or chemical solvents. The current means can be classified into three main types: physical methods (e.g., filtration, flotation, and absorption), chemical methods (e.g., dispersion, solidification, and burning), and biological methods (e.g., bioremediation). − Among all these remediation techniques, physical absorption is deemed as the most promising one due to low cost of raw absorbing materials, potential recycling ability, environmental friendliness, and so forth. − Recently, the ultralight carbon-based foams or aerogels (i.e., graphene − and carbon nanotube) applied in this field exhibit superhigh absorption and recycling capacity.…”