Kinetics of Microwave-Assisted Oxidative Degradation of Polystyrene in Solution

Sivalingam, G and Agarwal, Nitin and Madras, Giridhar (2003) Kinetics of Microwave-Assisted Oxidative Degradation of Polystyrene in Solution. In: AIChE Journal, 49 (7). pp. 1821-1826.

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Abstract

The kinetics of the oxidative degradation of polystyrene in dichlorobenzene in the presence of benzoyl peroxide was studied in a microwave reactor. Solutions with peroxide concentration ranging from 15 to $40 kg/m^3$ were irradiated by microwave of 700 W and frequency of 2.45 MHz with a different cycle heating period ranging from 20 to 45 s. The molecular-weight distributions were measured as a function of reaction time by gel permeation chromatography. Because the temperature of the system continuously varies with reaction time, a radical mechanism for oxidative degradation based on continuous distribution kinetics with time/temperature-dependent rate coefficients was proposed. The activation energy of 46.4 kJ/mol for the microwave-assisted oxidative degradation of polystyrene was obtained by nonlinearly regressing the experimental data.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	AIChE Journal
Publisher:	American Institute of Chemical Engineers
Additional Information:	The copyright belongs to American Institute of Chemical Engineers
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Chemical Engineering
Date Deposited:	27 Feb 2006
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:23
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/5399

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