The use of thermal analysis to study thermal processing effects on polypropylene

The thermal stability of a polypropylene copolymer has been examined at several stages during the processing of the material into its final product in order to obtain information on the influence of processing steps such as grinding and thermal heating on the expected lifetime of the material. Mass loss kinetics in an inert atmosphere were able to detect differences in thermal stability, but oxidative differential scanning calorimetry studies proved to be a more sensitive techiique. A comparative study of a specially prepared series of samples revealed the importance of additives on measured thermal stability and indicated that both mechanical and thermal processing can cause reduction in measured thermal stability.