QUIESCENT NONISOTHERMAL CRYSTALLIZATION KINETICS OF ISOTACTIC POLYPROPYLENES

Recently, a model was developed for the nonisothermal crystallization of normal alkanes with chain lengths between 30 and 50. The model was derived based on the fundamental equation of Ozawa for nonisothermal crystallization, the surface nucleation theory, and the growth rate theory for extended chain crystals. In this paper, the proposed model is modified and extended to the case of polymer crystallization. Experimental differential scanning calorimetry data for three isotactic polypropylene resins with different molecular weights are presented at five cooling rates from 2 to 40 K/min. Model predictions are in excellent agreement with the experimental data for the three polymers at low and high supercoolings.