Abstract
This paper presents a research on the thermal degradation of typical polymer insulation materials extruded polystyrene (XPS) under both
oxidizing gas air and non-oxidizing gas nitrogen. The Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose method was employed to calculate the activation energy
values according to thermogravimetic analysis (TGA) results. Thermal degradation characteristics of XPS were studied by using
thermogravimetry and differential scanning calorimetry (TG-DSC) hyphenated technique. XPS follows a two-stage and three-stage
weight loss during the entire process under nitrogen and air, respectively. Evolved products of XPS and the degradation mechanism in
helium were investigated with pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC-MS) method. The results reveal that styrene
monomers are the dominate products of XPS degradation. Methylbenzene, α-methyl styrene, dimer and some other oligmers of styrene
are also detected.