Thermal decomposition behaviors of an amphiphilic macroinitiator DSHPG for hydrocarbon fuel

Nowadays, a series of hyperbranched polymers have been developed as macroinitiators for hydrocarbon fuels. These macroinitiators are helpful to enhance the heat sink capability of endothermic hydrocarbon fuels to meet the great demand for thermal management when applied on a hypersonic or supersonic aircraft. An amphiphilic hyperbranched polyglycerol, DSHPG, has been studied when used as a novel macroinitiator. In this work, the thermal decomposition of DSHPG is investigated in detail to explore the pyrolysis mechanism of DSHPG based on the construction of mathematical models. The mathematical models are obtained from the thermal gravity analyses of DSHPG to predict the decomposition process of DSHPG and the kinetic parameters, such as activation energy and pre-exponential factor. Furthermore, the decomposition paths including possible radical reactions of DSHPG are proposed based on the qualitative investigation about the pyrolytic products detected from a pyrolysis-GC/MS apparatus. These results offer a detailed insight on the thermal decomposition of DSHPG to explore how the DSHPG functions as the macroinitiator for endothermic hydrocarbon fuels at high temperatures.