• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.432-437
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• 1999

Pyrolysis of polyethylene was carried out in the stainless steel reactor of internal volume of $10cm^3$. Pyrolysis reactions were performed at temperature $390{\sim}450^{\circ}C$ and the pyrolysis products were collected separately as reaction products and gas products. The molecular weight distributions(MWDs) of each product were determined by HPLC-GPC and GC analysis. Distribution balance equation for MWDs of random and specific products were proposed to account for initiation-termination and propagation-depropagation, such as hydrogen abstraction, chain cleavage, coupling of polymer and radical. A separate chain-end scission process produces low molecular weight noncondensable gases(C1 through C5) of average molecular weight 38. Activation energies of the random-chain scission and chain-end scission rate parameters, respectively, were determined to be 35, 17 kcal/mole.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.70-76
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• 1967

Structural changes attending polyacrylonitrile(PAN) upon heating and treating with nucleophilic reagents have been studied for some time and a few authors have studied on the thermal degradation, particularly on the characterization of degradation products in PAN. It is the purpose of this paper to report the kinetic study on the thermal degradation above $250^{\circ}C$ and make some suggestions as to the degradation process and mechanism in PAN. The degradation process in PAN is considered that three reactions are combined in two steps. Random chain scission accompanying the naphthylidine-type ring formation is the first step and the degradation of naphthylidine-type ring occurred as the next step. The reactions in the first step are competitive so that the maximum weight loss on pyrolysis of PAN, under such a condition that the degradation of naphthylidine-type ring is negligible, is depended on the relative reaction rate of these two competitive reactions.