A molecular based kinetic study on the thermal decomposition of poly-α-methyl styrene

Solid polymer thermal decomposition involves complex physical and chemical processes that are closely related to the microscopic molecular information (chemical structure, physical configuration, etc.). However, some important molecular information such as molecular weight is seldom involved in previous solid thermal decomposition studies due to the complexity of solid polymer itself. This work proposes a kinetic equation to study solid polymer thermal decomposition in which the influence of molecular weight to the decomposition is included based on an independent identical particle (IIP) model. Applications of this equation to the thermal decomposition of solid poly-α-methyl styrene (PαMS) show that: 1) there is good agreement between experimental and theoretical thermal decomposition rates; 2) molecular weight can affect not only the activation energy but also the pre-exponential factor of the thermal decomposition kinetic equation; 3) the higher the molecular weight is, the faster the PαMS decomposes in the main decomposition temperature range.