Preliminary studies on the thermal degradation kinetics of cattlehide collagen fibers

In this paper, samples of un-tanned cattlehide collagen fibers, chrome tanned cattlehide collagen fibers, and glutaraldehyde tanned cattlehide collagen fibers are prepared and preliminary studies of their thermal degradation behavior completed. The methods of both Flynn-Wall-Ozawa and Šatava-Šesták, which have been being widely and successfully used in the study of thermal degradation kinetics of synthetic polymers, are used to process the data obtained from thermo-gravimetric analysis of the three samples at different heating rates. The results obtained indicate that the thermal degradation activation energy of un-tanned cattle-hide collagen fibers is 130-160 kJ/mol. After tanning with chrome, it can reach 225-255 kJ/mol. However, in the case of a sample tanned with glutaraldehyde, its thermal degradation activation energy is only 120-163 kJ/mol, very close to the value of un-tanned cattlehide collagen fibers. The results suggest that the crosslink bonds between collagen molecules formed in the chrome tanning process are much more stable at high temperature than those formed in the glutaraldehyde tanning process.