Nonisothermal Crystallization Kinetics of Isotactic Polypropylene Containing Nucleating Agent and Dispersant

In this article, nonisothermal crystallization kinetics was investigated by using differential scanning calorimeter. The Avrami, Ozawa, and combined Avrami with Ozawa (Mo method) equations were applied to describe the crystallization kinetics and estimate the kinetic parameters of mathematical models under the nonisothermal crystallization of isotactic polypropylene (iPP) with rosin nucleating agent (RNA) and calcium stearate as dispersant (CSD). The results show that RNA can improve the crystallization temperature and accelerate the nucleation rate because of its heterogeneous nucleation. The crystal grain sizes of spherulites are smaller for iPP with RNA and CSD together than those for pure iPP and its matrix only filled with RNA. Furthermore, iPP blends with RNA and CSD show a lower Avrami values than that of the pure iPP, and the Mo method can successfully describe the crystallization model under the nonisothermal crystallization. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 117: 1047-1054, 2010