Non-isothermal kinetics of styrene—butadiene—styrene asphalt combustion

Abstract

The combustion characteristics of styrene—butadiene—styrene (SBS) asphalt are studied by thermogravimetric analysis (TG/DTG) at four different heating rates. According to the saturates/aromatics/resins/asphaltenes (SARA) fractionation method, the combustion process of SBS asphalt can be divided by Gaussian peak fitting into three main stages: oil content release, resin pyrolysis, and asphaltene and char combustion. When the heating rate increases, the mass losses of the oil content and resin pyrolysis increase, and less asphaltenes are formed at a higher temperature. The activation energy values are calculated by the Coats—Redfern method to be in the range 61.6 kJ/mol–142.9 kJ/mol. The Popescu method is used for the kinetic analysis, and the result shows that the three stages of asphalt combustion can be explained by the sphere phase boundary reaction model, the second order chemical reaction model, nucleation, and its subsequent growth model, respectively.