Sonocrystallization of polycarbonate melts

In this paper, we showed the simplified continuous process to crystallize the polycarbonate (PC) melts using sonocrystallization which is based on ultrasonic cavitation and ‘hot spot’ theory. High power ultrasonic wave was introduced to crystallize the PC prepolymers which is generally used for solid‐state polymerization (SSP) to obtain the ultra‐high molecular weight PCs. The structure and properties of PC treated with ultrasonic wave such as torque changes and crystallinities were studied. The experimental results showed that ultrasonic wave could improve the crystallinities of PCs and sonication time was proportional to their crystallinity. This is attributed to the decrease of the specific volume and the resulting shrinkage is compensated by a flux of a polymer melt toward the crystallization front. Torque data were collected directly from the Haake internal mixer and crystallinities were evaluated from differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). This process is an environmentally benign process so that no additional solvents or treatments are needed and will be very useful in the conventional solid‐state process which is used industrially. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.