Using isothermal kinetic results to estimate the kinetic triplet of the pyrolysis of high density polyethylene

The Arrhenius parameters and the reaction model of the pyrolysis of high density polyethylene (HDPE) have been estimated from isothermal kinetic results. We introduced a custom-made thermobalance that is able to record mass decrease with time under pure static condition. A best fit of the theoretical reduced-time plot (RTP) to an experimental one led to the conclusion that “contracting cylinder” model would represent the HDPE pyrolysis. The Arrhenius parameters obtained from the model-fitting method, using the contracting cylinder model, agreed excellently with the values from the model-free methods using both isothermal and non-isothermal measurements.