Abstract
The thermal degradation and thermal stability of rice husk flour (RHF) filled polypropylene (PP) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) composites in a nitrogen atmosphere were studied using thermogravimetric analysis. The thermal stability of pure PP and HDPE was found to be higher than that of wood flour (WF) and RHF. As the content of RHF increased, the thermal stability of the composites decreased and the ash content increased. The activation energy of the RHF filled PP composites increased slowly in the initial stage until α=0.3 (30% of thermal degradation region) and thereafter remained almost constant, whereas that of the RHF filled HDPE composites decreased at between 30 and 40 mass% of RHF content. The activation energy of the composites was found to depend on the dispersion and interfacial adhesion of RHF in the PP and HDPE matrix polymers.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 395-404 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry |
| Volume | 76 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2004 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by grant No. (R01-2002-000-00104-0) from the ‘Basic Research Program of the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation’. H.-S. Kim and H.-S. Yang are grateful for the graduate fellowship provided through the Ministry of Education through the Brain Korea 21 project.
Keywords
- Activation energy
- Flynn and Wall expression
- Rice husk flour
- Thermal decomposition
- Thermal stability
- Thermogravimetric analysis