Kinetics determination of polyuria microcapsules by a pH numerical simulation method

Abstract: Polyurea is widely applied in various fields, including industrial buildings, petrochemicals and marine facilities, due to its excellent performance, but an excessively fast synthesis reaction makes it difficult to determine the kinetics of polyurea microcapsules by tranditional methods. To solve this problem, a mathematical model is developed by a pH numerical simulation method to calculate the kinetics parameters of the polyurea reaction through the change of pH value in the reaction process of the monomers of toluene diisocyanate (TDI) and triethylenetetramine (TETA). Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) is used to confirm the kinetics parameters obtained in the mentioned calculations. The results show that the pH numerical simulation method is simple to measure. The activation energy is 78 kJ/mol measured by the pH numerical simulation method, which is close to 88 kJ/mol measured by FTIR. The small variation of the activation energies between the two methods shows that pH numerical simulation method is feasible and reliable for rapid measurement of kinetics parameters of the PUA reaction.