A Thermal Degradation Study of Insulation Materials Extruded Polystyrene

This paper presents a research on the thermal degradation of typical polymer insulation materials extruded polystyrene (XPS) under both oxidizing gas air and non-oxidizing gas nitrogen. The Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose method was employed to calculate the activation energy values according to thermogravimetic analysis (TGA) results. Thermal degradation characteristics of XPS were studied by using thermogravimetry and differential scanning calorimetry (TG-DSC) hyphenated technique. XPS follows a two-stage and three-stage weight loss during the entire process under nitrogen and air, respectively. Evolved products of XPS and the degradation mechanism in helium were investigated with pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC-MS) method. The results reveal that styrene monomers are the dominate products of XPS degradation. Methylbenzene, α-methyl styrene, dimer and some other oligmers of styrene are also detected.