Assessing thermal behaviours of cellulose and poly(methyl methacrylate) during co-pyrolysis based on an unified thermoanalytical study

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate pyrolysis and co-pyrolysis behavior of cellulose and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and examine the kinetics of the processes by using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) coupled with FT-IR spectrometry. For this purpose, non-isothermal experiments were carried out using different heating rates and three prominent iso-conversional methods were used to obtain kinetic parameters at various extents of conversions from 0.1 to 0.9. Blending PMMA with cellulose had a marked effect on the process. The results of co-pyrolysis using a blending ratio of 50 wt% PMMA indicated that the highest rate of pyrolytic transformation was achieved at a conversion degree of 0.5 while activation energy ranged from 188.1 to 364.3 kJ/mol. The most intensive gas release during cellulose pyrolysis was CO2. Co-pyrolysis was more complicated than that of pyrolysis of cellulose and PMMA due to depolymerization and radical interactions.