The influence of glass fibers on the morphology of β-nucleated isotactic polypropylene evaluated by differential scanning calorimetry

Abstract

The presence of fillers/fibers can significantly affect the polymorphic behavior of semi-crystalline polymers. The influence of glass fibers on morphology of β-nucleated iPP during isothermal and nonisothermal crystallization was analyzed in detail by DSC, and the kinetics and thermodynamic parameters were determined for the systems containing 10-60 % glass fibers. The presence of glass fibers in model composites with β-iPP has insignificant effect on the morphology of the polymer. Thermodynamic and kinetics parameters of crystallization of iPP in model composites are close to those obtained for the nucleated polymer. The relative content of β-crystalline phase is slightly affected by increasing glass fiber’s content from 10 % mas to 60 % mas, due to appearance of α-crystallites. However, the stability of β-crystalline phase is decreased by the increasing glass fibers content and there appeared certain amount of β1 and β2 phases which are known as disposed to recrystallization.

Keywords

• crystallization
• composites
• DSC
• polypropylene beta nucleated