Thermal decomposition kinetics of ferrocene modified poly(epichlorohydrin-co-2-(methoxymethyl) oxirane) based polyurethane networks

Abstract We synthesized poly(epichlorohydrin-co-2-(methoxy)methyl oxirane) [poly(ECH-co-MOMO)] and ferrocene modified poly(epichlorohydrin-co-2-(methoxy)methyl oxirane) [poly(FECH-co-MOMO)] based polyurethane networks. The polyurethane networks were prepared from prepolymer diol, 1,6-hexamethylenediisocyanate (HDI), and HDI-trimer with an [NCO]/[OH] ratio of 1.05 and an [isocyanate trimer]/[total NCO] ratio of 0.3 followed by accelerated aging at 80 °C for 72 h. Thermal decomposition kinetics of urethane networks were investigated by thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). Both the iso-conversional and Vyazovkin methods were used to investigate the thermal decomposition behavior for evaluating kinetic parameter of poly(ECH-co-MOMO) and poly(FECH-co-MOMO) based polyurethane networks. The decomposition temperature of the poly(ECH-co-MOMO) based polyurethane network was lower than that of the poly(FECH-co-MOMO) based polyurethane network. From the Vyazovkin method, the maximum activation energies of poly(ECH-co-MOMO) and poly(FECH-co-MOMO) based polyurethane networks were 220 kJ/mol and 240 kJ/mol, respectively.