Thermal Hazards Evaluation On Three Kinds Of Initiators In Solvent Under Adiabatic Condition

Thermal Hazards Evaluation
on Three Kinds of Initiators in Solvent under Adiabatic Condition

PENG Min-Jun   LV
Jia-Yu   CHEN Wang-Hua^*   CHEN Li-Ping  

(School of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of
Science & Technology, Nanjing Jiangsu 210094, China)

Abstract: 2,2^'-Azobis(isobutyronitrile)
(AIBN), 1,1^'-Azobis(cyclohexane-1-carbonitrile)
(ACCN) and Lauroyl peroxide (LPO) are the common initiators in solution radical
polymerization. In order to contrastively study thermal hazards of the three
initiators in solvent, accelerating rate calorimeter (ARC) was used to study
the adiabatic decomposition processes of AIBN, ACCN, LPO with the same mass in
xylene. The characteristic curves and thermal hazard
parameters of adiabatic decomposition were obtained, and the relative kinetic
parameters were calculated. The correction and analysis results of the measured
data show that the onset temperature of AIBN, ACCN, LPO are 61.75¡æ, 85.08¡æ, 65.12¡æ respectively, the activation energy
are 148.45kJ/mol,
154.14kJ/mol,140.41kJ/mol based on first-order law, and the time to the maximum rate
under adiabatic condition are found to be equal to 24 hours at 39.43¡æ, 71.35¡æ, 39.85¡æ. These all show that the
decompositions of the three initiators in xylene have highly thermal hazards (AIBN>LPO>ACCN). So in the relevant
processes, we must strengthen temperature monitoring and take effective cooling
measures to prevent fire and explosion.

Key words: Initiator; Thermal hazard; Solvent; Accelerating
rate calorimeter; Kinetic parameter; Time to maximum
rate