Study of thermal degradation behavior and kinetics of ABS/PC blend

Abstract

Abstract This work investigated kinetics and thermal degradation of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene and polycarbonate (ABS/PC) blend using thermogravimetric analysis in the range of 25 to 520°C. For thermal degradation of blend, activation energy ( E a ) and pre-exponential factor ( A ) were calculated under various heating rates as 5, 10, 15 and 20°C/min using iso-conversional model-free methods (Kissinger, Flynn-Wall- Ozawa and Friedman). Mass loss of the blend as a function of temperature was plotted as thermogravimetric curve (TG) while derivative values of mass loss were drawn as derivative thermogravimetric (DTG) curve. Using Kissinger method, E a was 51.4 kJ/mol, while values calculated from FWO and Friedman method were 86–161 and 30–251 kJ/mol respectively. Results showed increasing trend of E a with higher conversion values indicating different degradation mechanisms at the initial and final stages of the experiment. Thermodynamic parameters such as enthalpy change ( ΔH ), Gibbs free energy ( ΔG ) and entropy change ( ΔS ) were also calculated.