Discriminating within the kinetic models for heterogeneous processes of materials by employing a combined procedure under TKS-SP 2.0 software

Abstract

Kinetics of heterogeneous processes of materials is an important topic of thermal analysis field; it directly describes the dynamics of condensed matter systems, revealing “hot insights” of materials towards a better understanding of their structural, functional and transition-related properties. The advanced thermal and kinetic software by standard procedure TKS-SP 2.0 was successfully employed to perform kinetic computations, by making use of an extended spectrum of procedures, methods and discrimination criteria, it produces in real-time, high-volume and accurate sets of kinetic data from thermally induced processes. The discrimination between the kinetic models and the selection of the appropriate one is explained here in an in-depth study, employing the Perez-Maqueda et al. criterion under both integral and differential procedures in combination with the Gotor et al. master plots method. Perez-Maqueda et al. criterion describes the independence of the kinetic parameters from the heating rate, while the master plots method of Gotor et al. give the fastest way to check the kinetic models just by fitting in a continuous and visual manner the normalised transformation rate of a chemical or physical process with the relation ([f(α)·g(α)]/[f(α max)·g(α max)])—where the adjustment of the step of the kinetic model and of the values for the conversion degree at the maximal conversion rate inside the relation is performed. A working procedure is proposed to be applied for the step-by-step evaluations, discrimination and selection of the unique kinetic triplet {E, A, f(α)} corresponding to a certain investigated process.