Kinetic Analysis of Pyrolysis and Thermo-Oxidative Decomposition of Tennis String Nylon Wastes

Abstract

Thermal degradation of nylon-6 tennis string nylon wastes in inert nitrogen and air atmospheres was investigated by means of multiple heating-rate thermogravimetric analyses. The results obtained under the heating rates of 5–20 K/min are compared in terms of degradation feature and specific temperature for two atmospheres. Using nonisothermal data, kinetic analysis was thoroughly conducted using various isoconversional model-free methods, including Starink, Madhusudanan–Krishnan–Ninan, Tang, Coats–Redfern, and Flynn–Wall–Ozawa methods. With these kinetic analysis methods, the activation energy over the entire degradation process was successfully calculated. By means of the model-fitting master-plots method, the first-order chemical reaction model was determined to be the most appropriate mechanism function for describing pyrolysis and oxidative thermal degradation of nylon-6 waste. Using kinetic parameters, satisfactory matching against experimental data resulted using the Coats–Redfern method for both cases. Furthermore, thermodynamic parameters such as changes in entropy, enthalpy, and Gibbs free energy during thermal degradation processes were evaluated.