Nonisothermal Degradation of Wood Using Thermogravimetric Measurements

The thermal stability of wood and cellulosic materials is an important factor for applications of these natural renewable materials as fillers for reinforcing polymeric matrices. However, these materials have low thermal stability caused mainly by species that ignite at low temperatures. These characteristics contribute significantly to limit their use in situations where higher temperatures are required. In this work, the thermal degradation of two kinds of wood (Pinus and Garapeira) was evaluated using thermogravimetric measurements under nitrogen atmosphere. The parameters of thermal decomposition kinetics were estimated using the Flynn-Wall-Ozawa (FWO) method. The Garapeira wood showed lower activation energy at reaction degrees below 0.5, probably due to the presence of volatiles compounds, such as oil and wax. The Pinus wood had different characteristics in the initial reaction degree (up to 0.4). After this point, however, Garapeira becomes more stable than Pinus due to the formation of more thermally stable species and because of the higher amount of lignin. Besides, the thermal degradation processes of both woods were found to be mainly controlled by diffusion (D-n) of volatile species at reaction degrees up to 0.8, achieving a third order (F-3) mechanism afterwards.