Isothermal and non-isothermal pyrolysis kinetics of Kapton® polyimide

Abstract The kinetics involved in the thermal decomposition of Kapton® polyimide 100HN under nitrogen atmosphere were studied by applying various fitting techniques to the isothermal and non-isothermal gravimetric data. The correlation of the reaction mechanism fitting, the analytical model fitting and the isoconversional method to these data was examined in relation to the kinetic parameters and the kinetic predictions. The mechanisms for solid-state reactions fit the isothermal data very well but result in highly uncertain values for the kinetic parameters when applied to the non-isothermal data. Isoconversional methods show that the apparent activation energy depends on the extent of conversion but do not provide information for the reaction order and the pre-exponential factor. Three single heating-rate analytical models by Coats–Redfern, MacCallum–Tanner and van Krevelen were analysed using the non-isothermal data. A multi-heating rate model is proposed and its validity is compared to the single-heating rate models on the basis of kinetic predictions.