Thermal degradation and lifetime estimation of polycarbonate-ceria composite for electronic applications

A Polycarbonate (PC)/Ceria (CeO2) composite with 0.5 wt% CeO2 was prepared using melt blending method. A Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was done on PC and PC-CeO2. Based on the TGA results, the activation energy of PC-CeO2 was calculated by three iso-conversional methods viz. Friedman, Kissinger and Ozawa-Flynn-Wall (OFW). The activation energy varied along the variation of extent of conversion (alpha) and increased as a increased. Based on the theoretical and experimental master plots y(alpha), an Avrami-Erofeev (f(alpha) = 3(1 -alpha)[-ln(1- alpha)](2/3) and g(alpha) = [-ln(1-a)](1/3)) reaction model was selected to describe the thermal degradation mechanism of both PC and PC-CeO2. Further, the lifetime estimation of PC-CeO2 meets the demand in electronic applications.