Degradation Activation Energy Determination of PEG 4000-Quartz Composites using Dynamic Mechanical Analyzer (DMA) Measurements.

The degradation activation energy of PEG-quartz composites has been determined using Dynamic Mechanical Analyser (DMA) data by varying the frequency in the shear mode. Frequencies of 1, 10, 100, and 200 Hz were applied. The content of quartz (SQ) as the filler was 0, 20, 40 wt.%. DMA measurement results showed that the addition of quartz improved the G' values where the most improvement occurred in 40 wt.%. Furthermore, G' dropped with increasing temperature indicating free movement of polymer chain. A slight increase of G' also occured by increasing applied frequency. Glass transition temperature (Tg) increased with increasing applied frequency. Plotting ƒ vs 1/Tg informed gave the degradation activation energy from the materials, and it was found that the highest value was reached by the 40 wt.% samples, ie. 561.6 kJ/mol. In general, the more filler added, the higher the activation energy value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]