Synthesis and characterization of a novel isocoumarin derived polymer and its thermal decomposition kinetics

Abstract

A novel isocumarin derived polymer poly(2-(isocoumarin-3-yl)-2-oxoethyl methacrylate) poly(ICEMA) was synthesized by free radical polymerization. The spectral characterization was performed with FTIR and 1H,13C-NMR techniques. The glass transition temperature of poly(ICEMA) was measured to be 161.69 °C by DSC technique. The initial decomposition temperatures obtained from TGA showed a change in the positive direction from 256.59 °C to 286.10 °C as the heating rate increased to 20 °C/min. Thermal decomposition activation energies of poly(ICEMA) in the conversion range of 7% - 19% were found to be 136.12 kJ/mol and 134.83 kJ/mol by Flynn–Wall–Ozawa and Kissinger’s models, respectively. In addition, various integral models such as Coats-Redfern, Tang, Madhusudanan and Van-Krevelen models were used to determine the thermal decomposition mechanism of poly(2-(isocoumarin-3-yl)-2-oxoethyl methacrylate)which showed that it proceeded at the optimum heating rate of 5 ºC/min over the D1 one-dimensional diffusion type deceleration mechanism