Crystallization and Orientation of Isotactic Poly(propylene) in Cylindrical Nanopores Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • ABSTRACTThe crystallization of polymers in cylindrical geometries is important as interest in polymer nanowires and nanostructures grows. Here, semicrystalline isotactic poly(propylene) (iPP) is shown to crystallize in a homogeneous, lowdimensional fashion when confined in cylindrical pores as small as 15 nm. A strong dependence on pore diameter is demonstrated. Isothermal crystallization studies suggest a reduced Avrami exponent as pore diameter decreases and as crystallization time increases. Complementary Xray diffraction with tilt (texture analysis) reveals onedimensional ordering of iPP crystals within pores of 40 nm diameter or less in which crystals preferentially orient, perpendicular to the pore wall. These findings demonstrate that the origin of this orientation is related to the impingement of crystals against the pore wall, thus freezing out polymer crystallizing in nonpreferred directions. These results show that curvaturedirected crystallization is one potential means to control a polymer's crystallization rate and orientation. 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2014, 52, 14121419

published proceedings

  • JOURNAL OF POLYMER SCIENCE PART B-POLYMER PHYSICS

altmetric score

  • 1

author list (cited authors)

  • Reid, D. K., Ehlinger, B. A., Shao, L., & Lutkenhaus, J. L.

citation count

  • 13

complete list of authors

  • Reid, Dariya K||Ehlinger, Bridget A||Shao, Lin||Lutkenhaus, Jodie L

publication date

  • November 2014

publisher