Nucleation in Polymer Crystallization: Recent Advances
A special issue of Crystals (ISSN 2073-4352). This special issue belongs to the section "Macromolecular Crystals".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2021) | Viewed by 469
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Two thirds of polymer materials are crystalline. The crystalline structures, e.g., the degree of crystallinity, morphology and orientation of crystals have profound effect on the properties and applications of these materials. In most cases, crystallization of polymers follows the route of nucleation and growth, which determines the crystallization rate and the final crystalline structures. In industry, a higher crystallization rate and a higher degree of crystallinity are preferred to improve the production rate and heat resistance of polymer products. To accelerate the crystal nucleation of polymers, various methods have been applied. For instance, nucleating agents have been adopted to shorten the cycle time and increase the optical transparency of injection-molded products. In addition, self-seeding, epitaxy and applied stress can also enhance the crystallization rate of polymers. Besides the aforementioned methods, blending with amorphous components may improve the nucleation rate as well.
However, there are still open questions in the field of nucleation in polymer crystallization:
- What are the key differences in the nucleation mechanisms of polymer chains and small molecules?
- How do the mechanisms of primary and secondary nucleation differ?
- How do the structures and conformations in the amorphous melt affect the mechanisms and the kinetics of nucleation and crystallization of polymers?
- How is nucleation kinetics affected by constraints (nano-sized space, confinement) and molecular weight of polymer chains?
- How does the morphology of polymer crystals (e.g., single crystals, dendrites or spherulites) depend on the competition between chain diffusion, nucleation and lamellar growth?
- How can we design novel nucleating agents (or innovative mechanisms) and which new methods can be developed for enhancing the nucleation rate?
Keywords
- polymer crystallization
- nucleation
- crystal morphology
- polymer spherulites
- nucleation theory
- crystallization kinetics
- nucleating agent
- structure-property relationship
- epitaxy
- self-seeding
- memory effect
- polymorphism
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