Thermal Kinetics and Post Curing Thermal Stability of Bio-Based Phenol Formaldehyde Resins for Its Potential in Particleboard Production

Abstract

The thermal degradation kinetics and post curing behavior of phenol-formaldehyde and Bio-phenol formaldehyde (BPF) resole resins were investigated with thermogravimetry analysis at four different heating rates (5, 10, 15 and 20°C/min) from 25 to 700°C. The curing reaction for all the resole resins proved to be approximately 1st order, and the activation energies of the BPF resins at 25 wt% and 50 wt% bio-phenol replacement were 132.2 kJ/mol and 131.6 kJ/mol. These were comparable to that of the laboratory synthesized pure PF resin 131.0 kJ/mol but also remarkably lower than the commercial PF resin (138.1 kJ/mol) respectively. The result of the thermal degradation kinetics showed that the post-curing thermal stability of the 25 and 50 wt% BPF resins were similar to that of the commercial and laboratory synthesized pure PF resin but, that of 75 wt% differed from the commercial or laboratory synthesized PF resin.