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The α-, β-, and γ-polymorphs of polypropylene–polyethylene random copolymer modified by two kinds of β-nucleating agent

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Abstract

The α-, β-, and γ-polymorphs of polypropylene random copolymer with two kinds of β-nucleating agent (TMB-5 and WBG-2) have been studied via wide-angle X-ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry. It was found that the addition of 0.5 wt% β-nucleating agent (β-NA) hardly induces appreciable β-modification content, until β-NA content is up to 1 wt%. It seems that low amount of β-NA is not enough to counterbalance the nucleation ability and high content of defects (stereo- and regioerrors) of co-PP, and only α- and γ-modifications are obtained in the samples. Moreover, the relative amount of γ-crystal depends on the crystallization temperature. Although TMB-5 has better heterogeneous nucleation effect than WBG-2, the ability to form stable β-polymorph of WBG-2 is stronger than that of TMB-5. Since large amount of β-nucleation sites overcome the defects of co-PP molecular chain and curb the formation of γ-crystal, competitive growth of α- and β-polymorphs ultimately leads to the coexistence of α- and β-modification.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to express our great thanks to National Natural Science Foundation of China (51433006) and Sichuan Science and Technology Project (2017JY0069) for financial support.

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, College of Polymer Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China

    Jiaxin Fu, Xinpeng Li, Man Zhou, Rui Hong & Jie Zhang

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  1. Jiaxin Fu
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  2. Xinpeng Li
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Correspondence to Jie Zhang.

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Fu, J., Li, X., Zhou, M. et al. The α-, β-, and γ-polymorphs of polypropylene–polyethylene random copolymer modified by two kinds of β-nucleating agent. Polym. Bull. 76, 865–881 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-018-2413-z

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