Study of the Crystalline Morphology Evolution of PET and PET/PC Blends by Time-resolved Synchrotron Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) and DSC

Isothermal melt crystallization of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and PET/PC (polycarbonate) blend, with and without a transesterification catalyst, was studied by time-resolved small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) in order to achieve the variation of the morphological parameters throughout the whole crystallization time. For neat PET, the catalyst promotes a decrease of the crystal lamellar thickness but for the blend no variations were observed. The effect of incorporation of catalyst in crystallization kinetics was very distinct in PET pure and the blend: in the former the catalyst leads to an increase of this kinetics while for the latter it was observed a decreasing.