Macroscopic CNT fibres inducing non-epitaxial nucleation and orientation of semicrystalline polymers

In the presence of macroscopic fibres of carbon nanotubes (CNT), various semicrystalline polymers are shown to present accelerated crystallisation through the formation of a transcrystalline (TC) layer perpendicular to the fibre axis. From differential scanning calorimetry, polarized optical microsc...

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Main Authors:	Yue, Hangbo, Monreal-Bernal, Alfonso, Fernández-Blázquez, Juan P., Llorca, Javier, Vilatela, Juan J.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Nature Publishing Group 2015
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4649745/

id	pubmed-4649745
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-46497452015-11-23 Macroscopic CNT fibres inducing non-epitaxial nucleation and orientation of semicrystalline polymers Yue, Hangbo Monreal-Bernal, Alfonso Fernández-Blázquez, Juan P. Llorca, Javier Vilatela, Juan J. Article In the presence of macroscopic fibres of carbon nanotubes (CNT), various semicrystalline polymers are shown to present accelerated crystallisation through the formation of a transcrystalline (TC) layer perpendicular to the fibre axis. From differential scanning calorimetry, polarized optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction we establish this to be due to much faster nucleation rates at the fibre surface. The formation of a TC layers is demonstrated for polyvinyldene fluoride, isotactic polypropylene and poly(lactic acid) in spite of the large differences in their chemistry and structure unit cells, suggesting that epitaxy in terms of lattice type or size matching is not a prerequisite. For the three polymers as well as poly(ether ether ketone), the TC layer is identically oriented with the chain axis in the lamella parallel to the CNTs, as observed by wide and small angle X-ray scattering. These results point to polymer chain orientation at the point of adsorption and the formation of a mesomorphic layer as possible steps in the fast nucleation of oriented lamella, with wetting of the CNT fibre surface by the molten semi-crystalline polymer a key condition for heterogeneous nucleation to take place. Nature Publishing Group 2015-11-18 /pmc/articles/PMC4649745/ /pubmed/26578104 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep16729 Text en Copyright © 2015, Macmillan Publishers Limited http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Yue, Hangbo Monreal-Bernal, Alfonso Fernández-Blázquez, Juan P. Llorca, Javier Vilatela, Juan J.
spellingShingle	Yue, Hangbo Monreal-Bernal, Alfonso Fernández-Blázquez, Juan P. Llorca, Javier Vilatela, Juan J. Macroscopic CNT fibres inducing non-epitaxial nucleation and orientation of semicrystalline polymers
author_facet	Yue, Hangbo Monreal-Bernal, Alfonso Fernández-Blázquez, Juan P. Llorca, Javier Vilatela, Juan J.
author_sort	Yue, Hangbo
title	Macroscopic CNT fibres inducing non-epitaxial nucleation and orientation of semicrystalline polymers
title_short	Macroscopic CNT fibres inducing non-epitaxial nucleation and orientation of semicrystalline polymers
title_full	Macroscopic CNT fibres inducing non-epitaxial nucleation and orientation of semicrystalline polymers
title_fullStr	Macroscopic CNT fibres inducing non-epitaxial nucleation and orientation of semicrystalline polymers
title_full_unstemmed	Macroscopic CNT fibres inducing non-epitaxial nucleation and orientation of semicrystalline polymers
title_sort	macroscopic cnt fibres inducing non-epitaxial nucleation and orientation of semicrystalline polymers
description	In the presence of macroscopic fibres of carbon nanotubes (CNT), various semicrystalline polymers are shown to present accelerated crystallisation through the formation of a transcrystalline (TC) layer perpendicular to the fibre axis. From differential scanning calorimetry, polarized optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction we establish this to be due to much faster nucleation rates at the fibre surface. The formation of a TC layers is demonstrated for polyvinyldene fluoride, isotactic polypropylene and poly(lactic acid) in spite of the large differences in their chemistry and structure unit cells, suggesting that epitaxy in terms of lattice type or size matching is not a prerequisite. For the three polymers as well as poly(ether ether ketone), the TC layer is identically oriented with the chain axis in the lamella parallel to the CNTs, as observed by wide and small angle X-ray scattering. These results point to polymer chain orientation at the point of adsorption and the formation of a mesomorphic layer as possible steps in the fast nucleation of oriented lamella, with wetting of the CNT fibre surface by the molten semi-crystalline polymer a key condition for heterogeneous nucleation to take place.
publisher	Nature Publishing Group
publishDate	2015
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4649745/
_version_	1613502868474560512

Macroscopic CNT fibres inducing non-epitaxial nucleation and orientation of semicrystalline polymers

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