Thermogravimetric and Kinetics of Thermal Degradation of Powdered Laboratory Examination Gloves: 2. Analysis of Isotherm and Thermal Scan Traces from 307-455⁰C

The kinetics of pyrolysis of powdered laboratory safety examination gloves (PLEG) by the thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was studied and the corresponding parameters were evaluated. The goal was to look for approaches to save the condensed energy within the PLEG wastes in order to reduce the environmental pollution caused by an ever increasing amount of laboratory safety examination gloves (LEG) in the landfills. The study was conducted in the Department of Biological and Physical Sciences at South Carolina State University (SCSU), Orangeburg, SC, USA, during the spring and summer of 2014. Twelve TGA experiments were performed on twelve samples of PLEG under three distinct conditions. From the thermal scans and isotherms, the highest rate of weight loss, the temperature at the maximum weight loss, the apparent order of reaction (wlo), the apparent rate constant (k) and the apparent activation energy of weight loss (Ea) were estimated. The experimental results confirmed keeping the PLEG in temperatures near to 340°C for a period of 30 min resulted in production of new materials with more thermal stability than the original PLEG.