| Abstract: | Low syndiotactic polypropylene (sPP; rrrr = 80%) films were isothermally crystallized at 0 °C (sample S0) and 90 °C (sample S90) for 65 h, respectively. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, and wide‐angle X‐ray diffraction were used to characterize the structure transformation and orientation behavior of samples S0 and S90 at both stretched and stress‐relaxed states. It was found that stretching (λ = 0–700%) induces the transformation of the chain conformation from helical to trans‐planar form for both S0 and S90 films. The stretched S0 and S90 samples show well oriented trans‐planar chains as well as partially retained helices. Simultaneously, crystalline phase transformation occurs during the stretching and relaxing processes of the investigated sPP samples, i.e., stable form I crystals can be transformed into metastable form III or mesophase by stretching samples, and vice versa. For stretched S0 sample, form III with trans‐planar conformation, which generally exists in highly stretched sPP, cannot be observed, even at higher strains. For sample S90, however, stretching might induce the formation of both the form III crystals and mesophase with trans‐planar chains; releasing the tension, form III again gets converted into trans‐planar mesophase and form I crystals. In the stretched and stress‐relaxed states of samples S0 and S90, the difference of the delicate orientation behavior and relative content of chain conformation and crystalline form can be attributed to the different heat‐treating methods of the low syndiotacticity sPP. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 43: 2924–2936, 2005 |
