Effect of Dimethyl Terephthalate on Thermal Properties of Poly(butylene itaconate)

Abstract

The kinetics of decomposition of poly(butylene itaconate)(PBI) and poly (butylene terephthalate-co-butylene itaconate)(PBTI) with different monomer ratios of itaconate and dimethyl terephthalate were studied by means of thermal gravimetrical analyzer (TGA) from 30C to 700C in nitrogen. Friedman model was applied to quantitatively evaluate the kinetic parameters in terms of activation energy (E), the reaction order (n) and the pre-exponential factor (Z). The results clearly demonstrated that thermal stabilities of these PBTI copolyesters were substantially enhanced with the incorporation of more rigid butylene terephthalate comonomer