Synthesis, characterization and thermal dehydration and degradation kinetics of chitosan Schiff bases of o-, m- and p-nitrobenzaldehyde

The chitosan Schiff bases were synthesised through the condensation reaction of chitosan with o-, m- and p-nitrobenzaldehyde (abbreviated as CSB-o, CSB-m and CSB-p) in the ratio 1:1 and were characterised by means of FTIR, UV, XRD and SEM. The thermal dehydration and degradation kinetics of all these Schiff bases were studied using different isoconversional and maximum rate (peak) methods, viz. Kissinger–Akahira–Sunose (KAS), Tang, Starink, Flynn–Wall–Ozawa (FWO) and Bosewell from DSC data and the thermal stability from TG. The activation energy values of thermal dehydration and degradation reactions obtained from isoconversional methods of FWO and Bosewell are slightly higher than that obtained from other methods. All the isoconversional and maximum rate (peak) methods yielded consistent values of Eα for both the dehydration and degradation reactions and is in the order CSB-o < CSB-m < CSB-p. The Schiff bases observed (from TG) the same order of thermal stability.