GRAFTING CELLULOSE .2. THERMAL-PROPERTIES

The TG, DTG and DTA of native and grafted cotton were measured. The da ta obtained show that the thermal degradation of the samples obeys a f irst order reaction. The results indicate that the activation energy, Ea, increases with increasing the percentage of grafting. Also from th e TG curves it is found that cotton samples start to decompose at lowe r temperatures relative to the grafted samples. This behaviour may be due to the formation of crosslinked units through grafting. The kineti cs parameters and the thermodynamics functions indicate that grafting increases the thermal stability of cotton.