Abstract
Kinetic studies for the non-isothermal decomposition of un-irradiated and γ-irradiated ruthenium(III) acetylacetonate in air were carried out. The results show that the decomposition proceeds in one major step in the temperature range of 150–250 °C with the formation of RuO2 as a final solid residue for un-irradiated Ru(acac)3. For γ -irradiated Ru(acac)3 with 102 KGy total γ-ray dose, the decomposition goes eventually to completion with almost 100% decomposition and proceeds in one major step, which contains four overlapping decomposition stages in the temperature range of 200–320 °C. The kinetics is shown to be non-isothermal, using both model-fitting and model-free approaches. Infrared (IR) spectroscopy and X-ray powder diffraction techniques were employed to follow the chemical composition of the solid residue obtained at different temperatures.
Acknowledgements
The main author (R.M. Mahfouz) is thankful to SABIC for financial support and the use of some measurement facilities.