INTERPRETATION OF ACTIVATION-ENERGIES CALCULATED FROM NONISOTHERMAL TRANSFORMATIONS OF AMORPHOUS METALS

Non-isothermal differential scanning calorimetry is often used to determine the activation energy of transformations in amorphous metals by the way in which the transformation peaks shift with changes in heating rate. The two relationships used for this purpose were developed by Kissinger and Ozawa. There have been attempts to compare the activation energies obtained from each of these methods and thereby to infer the order of the underlying kinetic process. In fact, the differences found between the activation energies arise from different approximations used in developing the two relationships. When a correction is applied, both techniques give identical activation energies for the transformation and yield no information about the reaction order nor even about the type of kinetics involved.