P.E. Sánchez-Jiménez

Applications of sample-controlled thermal analysis (SCTA) to kinetic analysis and synthesis of materials

The advantages of the sample-controlled thermal analysis (SCTA) for both the kinetic analysis of solid-state reactions and the synthesis of materials are reviewed. This method implies an intelligent control of the temperature by the solid-state reaction under study in such a way that the reaction rate as a function of the time fits a profile previously defined by the user. It has been shown that SCTA has important advantages for discriminating the kinetic model of solid-state reactions as compared with conventional rising temperature methods. Moreover, the advantages of SCTA methods for synthesising materials with controlled texture and structure are analysed.

Kinetic studies in solid state reactions by sample-controlled methods and advanced analysis procedures

A comparative study of both conventional rising temperature and sample-controlled methods, like constant rate thermal analysis (CRTA), is carried out after analyzing a set of solid state reactions using both methods. It is shown that CRTA avoids the influence of heat and mass transfer phenomena for a wide range of sample sizes leading to reliable kinetic parameters. On the other hand, conventional rising temperature methods yield α–T plots dependent on experimental conditions, even when using samples sizes smaller than 2xa0mg. Moreover, it is shown that the discrimination of overlapping processes is dramatically improved using sample-controlled methods instead of conventional heating procedures. An advanced method for performing the kinetic analysis of complex processes from a single CRTA experiment is proposed.