DSC study of the decomposition of azodicarbonamide in different media

The decomposition of azodicarbonamide (Genitron AC-2) in the solid state was investigated by DSC. It was found that the decomposition under non-isothermal conditions can be described by the autocatalytic reaction scheme $$X\xrightarrow{{k_1 }}Y,X + Y\xrightarrow{{k'_2 }}2Y$$ where the following dependences hold for the rate constants: $$k_1 = 4.8 \times 10^{19} e - {{243 600} \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{243 600} {RT_s - 1}}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {RT_s - 1}}$$ and $$k'_2 = 1.0 \times 10^{13} e - {{133 500} \mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{133 500} {RT_s - 1}}} \right. \kern-\nulldelimiterspace} {RT_s - 1}}$$ The first pre-exponential factor includes the thermal history of the sample, especially the quick heating to a certain temperature, from which normal slow heating starts. Due to this fast heating, the decomposition reaction of AZDA may be understood as the collapse of its crystal lattice into nucleation centres with critical dimensions.