Thermodynamic analysis of decomposition of thiourea and thiourea oxides.

Thiourea has exhibited extremely rich dynamical behavior when being oxidized either through a chemical approach or via an electrochemical method. In this study, thermodynamic properties of thiourea and its oxides are investigated by measuring their thermogravimetry (TG), differential thermogravimetry (DTG), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) simultaneously. Online FT-IR measurements show that products of the thermal decomposition vary significantly with the reaction temperature. In addition to the determination of their apparent activation energy (E), preexponential factor (A), and entropy (DeltaS++), enthalpy (DeltaH++), and Gibbs energy (DeltaG++) of thermal decomposition, our investigation further illustrates that the decomposition kinetics of thiourea and thiourea oxides follows the Johnson-Mehl-Avrami Equation, f (alpha) = n(1 - alpha)[-ln(1 - alpha)](1-1/n) and G(alpha) = [-ln(1 - alpha)](1/n) with n equal to 2, 3.43, and 3, respectively.