Study of thermal degradation kinetics of high density polyethlyene (HDPE) by using TGA technique

Abstract

Thermal degradation process considered one of an important issue in recycling process of wide ranges of polymers as well at the same time cosidered an important tool in designing process in order to deal with medical and pharmaceutical waste to reduce the phenomenon of environmental pollution in designing incinerators. Therefore TGA analysis have been employed in order to establish the degradation behavior of high density polyethylene (HOPE) in the present work. The activation energy and reaction models for thermal degradation of HOPE determined by employing non isothermal models using Coats-Redfern (CR), Flynn-Wall-Ozawa iso-conversional model (FWO) and Kissinger reaction models. The behavior of degradation were studied at three different heating rates (10, 15, 20) C°/min. Kinetic and thermodynamic parameters were determined by employing Minitab tab 16 and the correlation R2 factor found close to unity.