The kinetics of crystallization of poly(ε-caprolactone) measured by FTIR spectroscopy

The kinetics of crystallization of poly(epsilon-caprolactone), PCL, have been measured by FTIR spectroscopy using the absorbance of the crystalline and amorphous phase carbonyl bands at 1725 and 1735 cm(-1), respectively, to determine the fractional crystallinity as a function of time and over the temperature range 43-47 A degrees C. A comparison was also made with DSC which was found to have limited sensitivity such that it could only measure the primary stage of the crystallization and not the secondary. Both primary and secondary crystallization could be measured by FTIR spectroscopy with sufficient accuracy to measure the kinetics of each and limited only by the length of time over which the measurements were made.