Calorimetric studies and kinetic determination of fires and explosions of a chemical processing of dicumyl peroxide

Abstract

The polymerization industry has existed for many years. The advancement of industrial technology is contributed to the related synthesis and application of enduring polymer operation. Organic peroxide (OP) initiators have been used and applied to practical industrial processes which may cause a runaway reaction due to their self-reactive property. OPs have been used for a long time and studied in the related literature. However, there are still emerging OPs that have recently been applied to these processes, and there are few related studies. To ensure the thermal safety of OPs in the process of production, transportation, and storage, the common OP initiator such as dicumyl peroxide (DCPO) was selected to be investigated. First, thermal decomposition characteristics under non-isothermal and adiabatic conditions of DCPO were acquired by differential scanning calorimetry. Second, combined calorimetry with pseudo-adiabatic and isothermal conditions can determine the process of thermal hazards and basic reaction patterns. The gleaned data can input into a mathematical model to evaluate the basic thermal hazards for DCPO, respectively. In addition, based on simulated thermal explosion models and kinetic parameters, hazardous properties of storage and transport can also be acquired. The results show that the DCPO has prominent hazard properties on thermal and explosive hazards in process conditions which should pay much attention to temperature during storage and transportation.