Improved Method for the Determination of Kinetic Parameters from Non-isothermal Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) Data

Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) at a constant heating rate is a popular technique for characterizing reaction behavior. Determination of kinetic coefficients from such TGA data has given rise to a large range of reported activation energies for similar samples. In general, rate coefficients are determined using either a linearized integral method or a derivative method. A new method incorporating several well-known techniques is presented that avoids the problems with the linearized techniques as they are generally used. This paper compares results from the new method with results using either the integral or derivative method. Mathematically generated data were used with known kinetic parameters for the comparison. This paper demonstrates that the new method shows better agreement with the data than either the integral or derivative method, and in some cases, the error was an order of magnitude lower. This paper also shows that the integral method outperforms the derivative method for the generated data.