Kinetic parameters, glass transition polystyrene

Glass transitions involve mainly the onset or freezing of cooperative, large-amplitude motion and can be studied using thermal analysis. Temperature-modulated calorimetry, TMC, is a new technique that permits to measure the apparent, fiequency-dependent heat capacity. The method is described and a quasi-isodiermal measurement method is used to derive kinetic parameters of the glass transitions of poly(ethylene terephthalate) and polystyrene. A first-order kinetics expression can describe the approach to equilibrium and points to the limits caused by asymmetry and cooperativity of the kinetics. Activation energies vary from 75 to 350 kJ/mol, dependent on thermal pretreatment. The preexponential factor is, however, correlated with the activation energy. 

Studies by Zhurkov (33,47) introduced the idea that breakage of primary chemical bonds plays a major role in the fractnre of pol5nners. He found that the time to failure imder a resistant uniaxial stress of PMMA and polystyrene below their glass-transition temperature could be expressed in terms of a thermally activated process involving three kinetic parameters ... 

The short time mode corresponds to the glass transition. In polymers like polystyrene, a narrow distribution is observed. Ihe width of the distribution reflects the width of the distribution of the order parameter it is increased after mechanical orientation by addition of a dopant or additive, or under special glass forming conditions (hydrostatic pressure or rheomolding). The distributed relaxation times obey a compensation law, they are reduced to a single time at the compensation temperature T. The departure of from the glass transition is related to the kinetic aspect of the transition. Thermodynamic models are based on the linear relationship between the activation enthalpy and the activation entropy. 

---