Nonoxidative thermal degradation kinetic of polyamide 6,6 reinforced with carbon nanotubes

Abstract

The thermal degradation of the polyamide 6,6 (abbreviated henceforth as PA 6,6) reinforced with different concentrations of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) was investigated by means of thermal analysis. In this study, the nanostructured composites were produced using 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0 wt% of CNT. X-ray diffraction analyses were performed in order to evaluate the crystallographic properties of nanostructured composite. The degradation kinetics of PA 6,6/CNT nanostructured composites were measured by thermogravimetric analysis at different heating rates under nitrogen flow. TGA experiments were performed to elucidate the thermal behavior and supply the data that characterize the degradation kinetic. The degradation parameter kinetics was determined using the Ozawa-Wall-Flynn (O-W-F) methods, which do not require knowledge of the reaction mechanism. In this work, the results show that the addition of CNT up to the amount of 0.5wt% increases the thermal stability of PA 6,6.