ANALYSIS OF THE KINETICS OF PHASE-TRANSFORMATIONS

A common basis of reaction-rate theories is discussed for isothermal and non-isothermal transformations. As a result compatible recipes have been obtained for the extraction of kinetic parameters from isothermally and non-isothermally conducted experiments. It follows that so-called Kissinger-like methods for non-isothermal kinetic analysis, originally derived for homogeneous reactions, can also be applied to heterogeneous reactions, and that these methods constitute (only) a special case of the general analysis proposed. The recipes presented are illustrated by a series of examples taken from recent research on solid-state transformations; among other things, isothermal and non-isothermal analyses of the same transformation are compared and use of the notion of "effective activation energy", that varies during the course of an overall transformation, is discussed.