Kinetics of the thermal degradation mechanisms in urea-formaldehyde cellulose composites filled with zinc particles

This paper reports a study on the structural characterization, thermal stability, and thermal degradation kinetics of urea-formaldehyde cellulose (UFC) composites filled with zinc particles. Structural characterization of UFC/Zn composites carried out by SEM, XRD and FTIR analyses reveals that the composites are fairly homogenous, and the interactions between UFC and zinc in the composites are physical in nature. Afterwards, measurements of inherent thermal stabilities, probing reaction complexity, and thermal degradation kinetics of UFC/Zn composites have been carried out. The integral procedure decompositions temperature elucidates significantly higher thermal stabilities of UFC/Zn composites. Isoconversional kinetic analysis suggests multi-step reaction pathways of UFC/Zn composites in terms of the substantial variations in their activation energies with the reaction advancement. Advanced reaction model determination methodology with the help of an innovative kinetic function F(α, T) reveals that the thermal degradation of UFC goes to completion by following complicated multi-step nucleation/growth mechanisms. A detailed account of the mechanistic information regarding to the thermal degradation processes taking place in UFC/Zn composites is given and discussed in the present study.