Kinetic study of the pyrolysis of neoprene

Kinetics of neoprene thermal decomposition has been performed under dynamic conditions at different heating rates, between 5 and 80 °C/min in a TG apparatus. The same kinetic model has been applied simultaneously to runs performed at different heating rates and different atmospheres allowing a good correlation of the weight loss data. A mechanism based on three independent reactions has been used to model the thermal decomposition. The first reaction is of an order close to two, and the other two reactions are of order below one, similar to other plastic materials. Different alternatives for the mathematical treatment for fitting TG data were considered. The accuracy of the calculated kinetic parameters was studied by means of a sensibility analysis.