| Abstract: | The crystalline morphology, or supermolecular structure, of poly(ethylene oxide) has been studied as a function of molecular weight and crystallization conditions. Molecular weight fractions, covering the range 6 × 103 to 1 × 107 are used over the range of accessible temperatures for isothermal crystallization as well as for a large set of controlled nonisothermal crystallization conditions. A morphological map is constructed from these studies and compared with the literature results. Prior reports were primarily confined to low molecular weights, which restricted the generalization of the findings. In the present work, as a consequence of the extended molecular weight range, conditions are established for the systematic development of several different, well-defined, organized super-molecular structures as well as for highly crystalline but disorganized systems. Strong similarities are found between the results for poly(ethylene oxide) and previous reports for linear polyethylene. A generalization for all chain molecules is suggested. |
