Proton NMR study of molecular motion in bulk and in highly drawn fiber polyamide-6

The proton motion in bulk and highly drawn fiber polyamide-6 has been studied by field cycling relaxometry and proton line shape measurements. The dips in theT ₁ dispersion allowed for the determination of the¹⁴N quadrupole coupling tensor. The fact that only one set of¹⁴N nuclear quadrupole resonance lines, has been found shows that all N-H groups in nylon-6 are H-bonded. A striking difference in the main line width transition and the low-frequency molecular dynamics has been observed between a slowly cooled “bulk” polyamide-6 sample and a rapidly cooled and highly drawn “fiber” sample by wide line proton nuclear magnetic resonance line shape and spin-lattice relaxation time measurements. This result is consistent with the picture that shearing melt processing procedures, such as spinning, plant stable and long-lived crystallization nuclei into the amorphous phase which impose additional motional constraints on the surroundings and inhibit the self-diffusion process.