Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) 2D: Furnace Cross-Section

This is the 2D cross-section companion to the 3D thermogravimetric-analysis simulator. Thermogravimetric analysis tracks a sample's mass while it is heated at a steady rate, and each drop in the curve is a real chemical or physical event — water leaving a hydrate, a gas splitting off a carbonate, a polymer's backbone breaking apart. This simulator drives the same three reference materials through a controlled heating ramp using identical multi-step Arrhenius kinetics, rendered here as a flat furnace slice you can pan and zoom instead of orbit: pick calcium oxalate monohydrate to watch three distinct mass-loss steps unfold in sequence, switch to pure calcium carbonate for a single sharp decarbonation, or load PVC and toggle the furnace atmosphere between inert nitrogen and oxidizing air to see its carbon char survive or burn away. A field of sample grains inside the crucible thins out grain by grain as each step's extent of reaction advances between the two glowing furnace coils, while a live strip chart plots the TGA mass curve alongside its derivative, DTG, whose peaks mark each event's temperature of fastest decomposition.