Thermal Stability of Aliphatic and Semiaromatic Polyamides: Tailoring the Choice of Isothermal Aging Temperature by Using Kinetic Models of Degradation

The objective of this work is to develop an analytical method for determining an accelerated aging temperature for polymers. This study presents the process used to address the aging temperature by using isoconversional methods for polyamides based polymers. These methods are based on several thermogravimetric analyses at different heating rates. The activation energies, associated with the degradation phenomenon of an aliphatic polyamide and a semiaromatic one, were determined by the Friedman method. Thanks to these activation energies and Toop's model, we have been able to propose kinetic models of degradation and temperature's domain well‐suited for accelerated thermal aging. This method, which combines both an experimental approach and the use of phenomenological models, turns out to be a rigorous tool for choosing aging temperatures.