Confined crystallization of poly(butylene succinate) intercalated into organoclays: role of surfactant polarity

Abstract

Understanding crystalline morphology and crystallization kinetics of PBS in the presence of a nanoclay is crucial to reveal the relationship between properties, morphology, as well as the processing of PBS/clay nanocomposites. In this work, two types of organoclay with slightly different polarity are homogeneously dispersed in PBS by melt intercalation. Interestingly, the crystallization kinetics of poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) are seriously affected by this slightly different polarity of the organic modifier grafted nanoclay. During isothermal crystallization of PBS in the presence of an organoclay, the crystallization behavior is significantly confined by an organoclay with slightly stronger polarity compared to that of an organoclay with a relatively weak polarity. Further, the nucleation density and crystallinity of PBS in the presence of 20 wt% of an organoclay with slightly stronger polarity are separately decreased 48.8% and 13.4% compared to neat PBS, while another organoclay with weak polarity facilitates nucleation and has a negligible influence on crystallinity. This study offers a new insight into the effect of the organic modifier polarity of a nanoclay on the confined crystallization of PBS, which provides significant guidance for fabricating a high barrier PBS film by using confined crystals as reported in our previous work.