Insights into Formation and Relaxation of Shear-Induced Nucleation Precursors in Isotactic Polystyrene

Abstract

Rheooptical experiments on narrow isotactic polystyrene (i-PS) fractions have been carried out to investigate temperature and molar mass dependence of the lifetime of shear-induced nucleation precursors. Similar to i-poly(1-butene) and i-polypropylene, the survival of the flow-induced structures lasts very long, even at temperatures well above the measured melting point of the crystals. It has been observed that the decrease of concentration of nucleation precursors follows a first-order kinetics with a strongly temperature-dependent rate constant. The apparent activation energy of the overall relaxation process is around 400 kJ/mol, of the same order of magnitude previously found for other semicrystalline polymers. A comparative analysis of the apparent activation energy data for different polymers, coupled with morphological evidence, suggests that the rate-determining step in the evolution of the system toward the equilibrium state in the melt is the detachment of stems from the lateral surface of flow...