Effect of nanoparticle surface treatment on nonisothermal crystallization behavior of polypropylene/calcium carbonate nanocomposites

Polypropylene (PP)/CaCO(3) nanocomposites were prepared by melt-blending method using a Haake-90 mixer. The CaCO(3) nanoparticles were surface modified with a coupling agent before compounding. A fine dispersion of the modified nanoparticles in the nanocomposites was observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Effects of surface treatment of CaCO(3) nanoparticles on the nonisothermal crystallization behavior and kinetics of PP/CaCO(3) nanocomposites were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Jeziorny and Mo methods were used to describe the nonisothermal crystallization process. It was shown that the crystallization temperature of the nanocomposites increased due to the heterogeneous nucleation of the surface-treated nanoparticles. It was found that the nanoparticles modified with a proper content range of coupling agent could facilitate the nonisothermal crystallization of the nanocomposites under certain conditions (the cooling rate and the relative degree of crystallinity). This may be a potential application for the crystallization controlling of composites in manufacturing. In addition, the activation energy of crystallization for the nanocomposites and the nucleation activity of the nanoparticle were estimated by using Kissinger and Dobreva's methods, respectively. It could be concluded that the surface-treated nanoparticles had a strong nucleating activity, which caused the decrease of the activation energy of the nanocomposites.