In situ FTIR spectroscopic study of the recently detected low‐temperature‐induced structural changes in isotactic polypropylene

Abstract

AbstractThe in situ Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic study of isotactic polypropylene showed that structural changes are induced at liquid nitrogen temperature, and start to show up in the FTIR spectra with heating from −196 to +200 °C. This structural change leads to the detection of an abnormal behavior in the MIR absorption spectra of the investigated sample. Lowering the temperature brought the chains closer together and so increased the interchain interaction. At −196 °C splitting of some regularity bands assigned to helical chains within the crystalline region was observed, showing that the regularity of the chains increases because of cooling. Heating the samples from liquid nitrogen temperature caused an opposite conformational disordering, which resulted in the appearance of several new broad bands in the ranges: 600–700, 1614–1640, and 3050–3550 cm−1. These structural changes might be due to both twisting and folding of the chains, which gave rise to bands assigned to the various bending modes of CH2 molecules, in addition to the rotational isomers (conformers) resulting from rotation of the vinyl and alkyne end groups. Moreover, our experimental study of the behavior of several regularity bands suggests that at temperatures in the vicinity of +120 °C another high temperature structural change resulting from the disordering of helical sequences in the noncrystalline region takes place. Differential scanning calorimetry thermograms of the thermally treated and an untreated sample were found to confirm the obtained results. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 43: 2829–2842, 2005