Kinetic modeling for thermal dehydration of ferrous oxalate dihydrate polymorphs: a combined model for induction period-surface reaction-phase boundary reaction.

In this study, ferrous oxalate dihydrate polymorph particles, α- and β-phases, with square bipyramidal and quadratic prismatic shapes, respectively, were synthesized. Thermal dehydration of the samples was subjected to kinetic study as a typical reaction that indicates a significant induction period and a sigmoidal mass-loss behavior. On the basis of the formal kinetic analysis of the mass-loss traces recorded under isothermal, nonisothermal, and constant transformation rate conditions and the morphological observations of the surface textures of the partially reacted sample particles, a combined kinetic model for the induction period-surface reaction-phase boundary reaction was developed. The sigmoidal mass-loss behavior after the significant induction period under isothermal conditions was satisfactorily simulated by the combined kinetic model. The kinetic parameters for the component processes of induction period, surface reaction, and phase boundary reaction were separately determined from the kinetic simulation. The differences in the kinetic behaviors of the induction period and the phase boundary reaction between α- and β-phase samples were well described by the kinetic parameters. The applicability of the combined kinetic model to practical systems was demonstrated through characterizing the physicogeometrical kinetics of the thermal dehydration of ferrous oxalate dihydrate polymorphs.