Further electron microscope observations on polyethylene III. Smectic intermediate state during melting and crystallization

While it was possible to demonstrate in the first part of this paper 1] that the granular structure in an LPE melt created by short-time staining with chlorosulfonic acid is an artifact, it was demonstrated in the second part 2] that an artifact can actually be useful. It makes it possible to differentiate between the mobile melt and a very thin layer of fixed melt on the crystalline lamellae which corresponds to the switchboard model.This third part reports the discovery of a smectic type of liquid crystal intermediate state both in the melting and in the crystallization processes, which many authors regarded as impossible because of the flexibility of the molecules in polyethylene.Extracts presented at the 32nd Hauptversammlung der Kolloid-Gesellschaft und Berliner Polymeren Tage 1985, 2–4 October 1985 in Berlin