| Abstract: | The crystallization and melting behavior of bisphenol A polycarbonate treated with supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) has been investigated with differential scanning calorimetry. Supercritical CO2 depresses the crystallization temperature (Tc) of polycarbonate (PC). The lower melting point of PC crystals increase nonlinearly with increasing treatment temperature. This indicates that the depression of Tc is not a constant at the same pressure. Tc decreases faster at a higher treatment temperature than at a lower temperature. The leveling off of the depression in Tc at higher pressures is due to the antiplasticization effect of the hydrostatic pressure of CO2. The melting curves of PC show two melting endotherms. The lower melting peak moves to a higher temperature with increasing treatment temperature, pressure, and time. The higher temperature peak moves toward a higher temperature as the treatment temperature is increased, whereas this peak is independent of the treatment pressure, time, and heating rate. The double melting peaks observed for PC can be attributed to the melting of crystals with different stability mechanisms. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 280–285, 2004 |
