Federal Aviation Administration

The heats of combustion for forty-nine commercial and developmental polymers of known chemical structure were determined using an oxygen bomb calorimeter according to standard methods. The experimental results were compared to thermochemical calculations of the net heat of combustion from oxygen consumption and the gross heat of combustion from group additivity of the heats of formation of products and reactants. The polymers examined were thermally stable, char forming thermoplastics and thermoset resins containing a significant degree of aromaticity and heteroatoms including – nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, silicon, and oxygen in linear and heterocyclic structures. The gross and net heats of combustion calculated from polymer enthalpies of formation and oxygen consumption thermochemistry were within 5 percent of the experimental values from oxygen bomb calorimetry. The heat released by combustion per gram of diatomic oxygen consumed in the present study was E = 13.10 ± 0.78 kJ/g-O2 for polymers tested (n = 48). This value is indistinguishable from the universal value E = 13.1 kJ/g-O2 used in oxygen consumption combustion calorimetry