Non-isothermal crystallization and melting of ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymers with different vinyl acetate contents

Non-isothermal crystallization and subsequent melting of three grades of ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) technique. The DSC crystallization curves show that vinyl acetate (VAc) content has the same effect on the onset, peak and final crystallization temperatures, and these copolymers have almost the same spacing of thermal windows under identical crystallization condition. Subsequent melting DSC results suggest that EVA14 (14 wt% VAc) has the narrowest distribution of lamellar thickness and the most perfect crystals. Though the instantaneous nucleation was preferred, non-isothermal crystallization kinetics shows that EVA14 could form tridimensional crystallites, whereas EVA18 (18 wt% VAc) and EVA28 (28 wt% VAc) are prone to crystallize two-dimensionally, as a result of more noncrystallizable VAc co-monomers introduced in the crystallizable ethylene segments. The growth rate falls on the following sequence: EVA14>EVA18>EVA28. Moreover, the kinetic crystallizability G also well characterizes the variation of the non-isothermal crystallization of these EVA materials, in the view of structural impediment caused by the VAc content.