Thermal decomposition behavior of di-tert-butyl peroxide measured with differential adiabatic calorimeter

Abstract

A differential adiabatic calorimeter (DAC) was recently developed as the calorimeter which can estimate the thermal decomposition hazards of chemicals in the adiabatic condition that the phi-factor is equal to one. Its calorimeter can measure thermal properties of sample regardless of heat capacity of the sample container. There is a possibility that it becomes to the useful tool to estimate the hazards of the self-reactive substances.The adiabatic temperature rise measured by its calorimeter does not depend on the sample mass experimentally though the adiabatic investigation strongly commonly depends on sample mass. However, its propriety of the data measured by its calorimeter is not so known and familiar in the field of the hazardous evaluation of chemicals. In this report, the measurement results by its calorimeter were examined with di-tert-butyl peroxide (DTBP)/toluene solution. DTBP is one of the self-reactive substances and used as standard sample of the ARC (accelerating rate calorimeter). In addition, the property of DTBP decomposition was investigated by the measurements data of the differential adiabatic calorimeter.As a result of measurements, the measurement results implied DTBP reacted with toluene as the problem of DTBP. In order to solve these problems, it was proposed to use pentadecane as solvent because pentadecane was not so volatile and active in the range of the measurement temperature. The experimental results suggested the DTBP decomposition process depended on DTBP concentration.The activation energy and heat of reaction obtained by the DAC was almost the same as literature values. In addition, the data of heat rate and the pressure rate without the sample mass and solvent effects were obtained in the thermal decomposition of DTBP.