Thermal Degradation Kinetics Analysis of Ethylene-Propylene Copolymer and EP-1-Hexene Terpolymer

Abstract

LLDPE is a less crystalline polymer with vast industrial and domestic applications. It is imperative to understand the synthesis, processing conditions, and thermal degradation mechanism of the co- as well as terpolymers. This paper reports the in−situ synthesis and thermal degradation studies of the ethylene-propylene copolymer and ethylene-propylene-1-hexene terpolymer and its nanocomposite with ZnAL LDH sheets. The 1-hexene dosing during the in−situ process influenced the product yield and immensely affected the thermal stability of the resultant polymer. One milliliter 1-hexene in−situ addition increased the product yield by 170 percent, while the temperature at 10 percent weight loss in TGA was dropped by about 60 °C. While only 0.3 weight percent ZnAL LDH addition in the terpolymer improved the thermal stability by 10 °C. A master plot technique and combined kinetics analysis (CKA) were deployed to access the thermal degradation mechanism of the synthesized polymers.

Thermal behaviour and crystallization analysis of ethylene‐propylene (EP) copolymer and EP‐styrene terpolymer

“…These observations of a reduction in T m are in line with α‐olefins‐EP terpolymers reported earlier. [ 4,27 ] For instance, in one of our previous works, 1‐hexene addition to EP reduced the T m from 123 to 114°C. [ 4 ] A similar trend is observed for T c and crystallinity that decreased with styrene introduction into EP.…”

“…The reaction was allowed to run for 30 min followed by termination by adding 100 mL of methanol that contained 5% by volume HCl. The product was washed with excess methanol and filtered, followed by drying in an oven at 40 C for 16 h. [4] 2.4 | Characterizations…”

“…The molecular weight distribution (MWD), crystallinity, polymer morphology, catalytic activity, and flame retardancy are all affected by LDHs. [ 4 ]…”

“…[2,3] In the EP terpolymer, the third monomer remains mainly dienes, higher α-olefins. [2,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Upon polymerization, there might still remain unsaturated bonds in the terpolymer. [11] These terpolymers with a large proportion of ethylene or propylene (or other olefins) and a small amount of a monomer whose molecule contains more than one double bond also exhibits good elastic and mechanical properties.…”

Studies on the thermal stability of vinyl ester/polyurethane IPNs by gravimetric analysis

“…where T 0 is the initial temperature and T is the temperature at time t. Nonisothermal methods are usually common in solid-state kinetics because they require less experimental data in comparison to isothermal methods. 29 Equation (9) was considered for nonisothermal experiments 30 …”