Apparent activation energy and characteristic temperatures of thermal decomposition research of microwave prepared melamine foam

The characteristic temperature and apparent activation energy (AAE) of the melamine foam (MF) prepared by microwave were calculated with four well-known thermal kinetic models of Friedman (FD), Flynn–Wall–Ozawa (FWO), Kissinger (KS) and Coats–Redfern (CR) models. TGA experiment results showed that the TGA curves moved to the right with the increased heating rate, and the peak value of the DTG curve became stronger. Meanwhile, the onset temperature (To), peak temperature (Tp) and shift temperature (Ts) of MF samples exhibited an increasing tendency with enhanced heating rate from 5 °C/min to 20 °C/min. The mean AAE values of MF calculated by KS model (305.84 kJ/mol) was slightly higher than that of FWO (274.55 kJ/mol), CR (276.14 kJ/mol) and FD (285.33 kJ/mol) models, depending on the method of calculation. The four thermal kinetic models (FD, FWO, CR and KS) can provide a complementary technique to analyze the thermal stability and thermal decomposition process of MF, and provided the basis for producing carbon foam and carbon aerogel materials with better performance in the future.