DETERMINATION OF KINETIC-PARAMETERS USING DIFFERENTIAL THERMAL-ANALYSIS - APPLICATION TO THE DECOMPOSITION OF CACO3

An analytical method has been developed to determine the kinetic param eters of a chemical reaction involving a substantial enthalpy change u sing differential thermal analysis (DTA). The theoretical treatment is based on fundamental equations considering the heat balance. The anal ytical derivation was simplified by carefully choosing the experimenta l conditions. The method was applied to the decomposition of CaCO3 in argon gas. The activation energy of the decomposition of CaCO3 evaluat ed using the present approach is in very good agreement with the resul t obtained from the thermogravimetric analyses (TGA) Carried: out simu ltaneously with the DTA measurements. The limitation of the technique includes maintaining the temperature rise of the sample small enough n ot to significantly affect temperature reading but large enough to ens ure accurate measurement of the heat generation.