Acceleration mechanism of nucleation of polymers by nano-sizing of nucleating agent

Abstract

Role of nucleating agent (NA) in nucleation mechanism of polymers was solved based on kinetic study. Theoretical prediction in our previous study that I ∝ CNAaNA-1 (1) was experimentally confirmed by changing CNA and aNA, where I is nucleation rate of polymers, CNA is a concentration of NA in the mixture of NA and a polymer and aNA is lateral size of a NA crystal. As the eq 1 is formulated by assuming an important role of epitaxy between NA and polymer crystals, the confirmation of eq 1 confirmed the essential role of the epitaxy in acceleration mechanism of nucleation of polymers. aNA was decreased from the order of μm to nm and narrow distribution of a NA (f(aNA)) was obtained by improving "bottom up" method. We have an important conclusion in polymer science and industries that decreasing aNA from the order of μm to nm and narrowing f(aNA) are the most effective methods to improve the per formance of NA. © 2006 The Society of Polymer Science, Japan.