Isothermal crystallization behaviors of isotactic polypropylene nucleated with α/β compounding nucleating agents

Sodium 2,2′‐methylene‐bis(4,6‐di‐ tert ‐butylphenyl) phosphate (NA40) and N,N ‐dicyclohexylterephthalamide (NABW) are high effective nucleating agents for inducing the formation of α‐isotactic polypropylene (α‐iPP) and β‐iPP, respectively. The isothermal crystallization kinetics of iPP nucleated with nucleating agents NABW, NA40/NABW (weight ratio of NA40 to NABW is 1:1) and NA40 were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and Avrami equation was adopted to analyze the experimental data. The results show that the addition of NABW, NA40/NABW and NA40 can shorten crystallization half‐time ( t 1/2 ) and increase crystallization rate of iPP greatly. In these three nucleating agents, the α nucleating agent NA40 can shorten t 1/2 of iPP by the largest extent, which indicates that it has the best nucleation effect. While iPP nucleated with NA40/NABW compounding nucleating agents has shorter t 1/2 than iPP nucleated with NABW. The Avrami exponents of iPP and nucleated iPP are close to 3.0, which indicates that the addition of nucleating agents doesn't change the crystallization growth patterns of iPP under isothermal conditions and the crystal growth is heterogeneous three‐dimensional spherulitic growth.