Thermal Stability and Decomposition Kinetics of Polysuccinimide

Abstract

The thermal stability and decomposition kinetics of polysuccinimide (PSI) were investigated using analyzer DTG-60 under high purity nitrogen atmosphere at different heating rates (3, 6, 9, 12 K/min). The thermal decomposition mechanism of PSI was determined by Coats-Redfern method. The kinetic parameters such as activation energy (E), pre-exponential factor (A) and reaction order (n) were calculated by Flynn-Wall-Ozawa and Kissinger methods. The results show that the thermal decomposition of PSI under nitrogen atmosphere mainly occurs in the temperature range of 619.15-693.15 K, the reaction order (n) was , the activation energy (E) and pre-exponential factor (A) were obtained to be 106.585 kJ/mol and 4.644 × 109 min-1, the integral and differential forms of the thermal decomposition mechanism of PSI were found to be and , respectively. The results play an important role in understanding the thermodynamic properties of polysuccinimide.