Graphical analysis of processes with multiple activation energies

摘要

The activation energies characterizing a kinetic process are derived from the slopes of the Arrhenius diagrams obtained by plotting rate constants versus reciprocal temperature. Those rate constants correspond to the shifts along the time axis needed to superpose the successive isotherms. A general method based on Chebyshev interpolation is proposed for the optimization of the superposition of the experimental data points. This method is applied to determine the activation energies of the graphitization kinetics of the interlayer spacings of pitch coke and pyrocarbon samples.