Thermal and catalytic pyrolysis of crosslinked polyethylene

In the present work, the thermogravimetric behaviour of polyethylenes with a different degree of crosslinking has been studied with and without catalyst. While crosslinking tends to slightly advance the thermal decomposition of polyethylene, in the case of catalytic decomposition, crosslinking tends to decrease the activity of the catalyst towards the crosslinked polyethylene, and it can be observed that the more crosslinked, the higher the temperature of the beginning of catalytic cracking. All these differences have been qualitatively analysed and have revealed that catalytic pyrolysis can differentiate samples with different degree of crosslinking in contrast to thermal pyrolysis. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.