Thermal degradation kinetics of insulating/conducting epoxy/Zn composites under nonisothermal conditions

Abstract

This article deals with the nonisothermal degradation kinetics of insulating and conducting epoxy/Zn composites. A comparison of thermal degradation data obtained from epoxy/Zn composites revealed that the addition of zinc content in epoxy significantly increases its degradation rate. However, the zinc content activates the degradation until its melting point (419.5°C) and then it starts stabilizing the matrix due to its higher specific heat in molten state. Kinetics of the phenomena fairly explains this behavior in terms of the comparison of general kinetic equations for epoxy/Zn composites. It is to notice that both the values of effective activation energy and reaction model (Šestâk Berggren/SB‐ m , n ) for insulator/conductor composite pair have been found almost the same emphasizing upon negligible polymer–metal interactions in both cases. These mechanistic clues derived from comparative kinetic study have been found in good agreement with the results obtained through morphological analysis of samples by scanning electron microscopy and X‐ray diffraction techniques. POLYM. COMPOS., 34:2049–2060, 2013. © 2013 Society of Plastics Engineers