Ordered long‐helical conformation of isotactic polypropylene obtained in constrained environment of nanoclay |
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Authors: | Zhicheng Wang Xi Fan Ke Wang Hua Deng Feng Chen Qiang Fu Bing Na |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Polymer Science and Materials, State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, P.R. China;2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, East China Institute of Technology, Fuzhou 344000, P.R. China |
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Abstract: | Special crystallization event of isotactic polypropylene (iPP) in a constrained environment, a layered clay network, was followed by in situ Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy during the cooling process. Before occurrence of nucleation/crystallization, a conformationally ordered phase, which consists of significant amounts of long 31 helices with 14 monomeric units, has been identified for the first time. More importantly, it was found that the long‐ordering helices could play a more important role than short ones for the confined crystallization. It could be tentatively explained as due to the existence of constrained regions in the proximity of the nanoclay platelets or tactoids and the heterogeneous nucleation capability of the surface of nanoclay. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
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Keywords: | polypropylene ordering helix nanoclay network environmental confinement |
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