DETERMINATION OF THE KINETIC-PARAMETERS FOR THE POLYMERIZATION OF A POLYURETHANE USING AN IMPROVED METHOD OF DIFFERENTIAL SCANNING CALORIMETRY

The kinetic parameters for the polymerization reactions of two polyurethane systems were determined by using an improved method of differential scanning calorymetry (DSC). The calculated activation energy, reaction order, and Arrhenius prefactor show good correlation with the experimental results. The method used here shows several improvements as respects to other DSC methods: the three kinetic parameters can be calculated directly; it is more accurate than other DSC methods; and it requires only one heating rate, during the calorimetric experiments, to determine the activation energy.