A study of classifying autocatalytic strength with adiabatic conditions

Autocatalytic decompositions are common in fine chemistry. They are considered hazardous because they give rise to sudden heat evolution, often with unexpected initiation and unknown exogenous influences. The expression of autocatalytic factor Z cited from Benito-Perez model was firstly introduced. Through thermal safety software, simulations with different autocatalytic factors were carried out. The results demonstrated that the increase in autocatalytic factor resulted in the stronger autocatalytic decomposition. Furthermore, by the normalization of simulation curves, the relationship between autocatalytic strength and curve shape was found, i.e., higher degree of autocatalysis produced more meandering curve. The standard curves with different levels of autocatalytic factors were determined next. According to the standard curves area, five zones for different strengths of autocatalysis were divided, i.e., weak or no autocatalysis, less weak autocatalysis, moderate autocatalysis, less strong autocatalysis and strong autocatalysis. Finally, this classification approach was applied to two well-known substances, dicumyl peroxide and dimethyl sulfoxide; the rationality of this approach was verified by comparing classification results with previous studies. From this research, a new approach (normalization contrast method) is proposed to conveniently identify the autocatalytic strength for adiabatic instruments.