2.4. Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA)

TGA was carried out with a Thermal Gravimetric Analyzer, TA instruments TGA Q500, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Each sample underwent degradation from room temperature to 600 °C, in nitrogen atmosphere, at four different heating rates (10, 20, 30, and 40 °C/min). The material’s thermal stability was quantified by estimating the activation energy of thermal degradation (E_T), following the Kissinger method: [19].

R is the gas constant, T_max is the temperature of maximum degradation, β₀ is the cooling rate, and A is the pre-exponential factor. E_T could be calculated from the slope of the plot “ln(β₀/T_max²)” versus “1/T_max”. Tests were redone two more times to incorporate the standard deviation values.