Thermal oxidative degradation kinetics of flame-retarded polypropylene with intumescent flame-retardant master batches in situ prepared in twin-screw extruder

The thermal oxidative degradation kinetics of pure PP and the flame-retarded (FR) PP materials with intumescent flame-retardant (IFR) master batches in situ prepared in twin-screw extruder were investigated using Kissinger method, Flynn-Wall-Ozawa method and Coats-Redfern method. The results showed that the activation energy order of PP and FR PP samples with different blowing agent/char former ratios obtained by Kissinger method agrees well with that obtained by Coats-Redfern one, which well illustrates the relationship between the composition of IFRs and their flame-retardancy, i.e. FR material with richer carbonization agent has higher activation energy for thermal oxidative degradation, hence leading to a better flame-retardancy. For Flynn-Wall-Ozawa method, due to its adoption of Doyle approximation, the obtained activation energy and its order of samples are very different from those of both Kissinger and Coats-Redfern methods. Criado method was finally used to determine the degradation reaction mechanism of various samples. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.