Non-Isothermal Crystallization Behavior of Poly(Ethylene Terephthalate)/Carbon Black Composite

Abstract

Poly(Ethylene Terephthalate)(PET)/carbon black(CB) composite was prepared by melt blending using a separate feeding technique. The non-isothermal crystallization process of virgin PET and PET/CB composite were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and the different methods such as Jeziorny modified Avrami equation, Ozawa equation and the method developed by Mo were employed to analyze the non-isothermal kinetics of virgin PET and PET/CB composite. The results show that the CB particles dispersed in PET matrix act as heterogeneous nucleating agents, while CB particles hinder the movement of molecular chains of PET, meanwhile, the crystallization activation energy(⊿E) of PET/CB composite is much greater than that of virgin PET according to Kissinger formula, which is opposite to the low CB content condition. This indicates that CB particles reduce the rate of crystal growth. Whereas, the results obtained from the mentioned three methods simultaneously demonstrate the addition of CB greatly increases crystallization temperature and crystallinity and accelerates crystallization rate. Taking the two seemingly contradictory results, crystal growth has little effect on the crystallization rate and crystal nucleation dominate the crystallization process of PET/CB composite with very high CB content. According to Jeziorny method, the constant of crystallization rate (Zc) increases with the increment of cooling rate and Avrami index (n) doesn’t change significantly, but the Zc and n of PET/CB composite are greater than that of PET. Based on Ozawa method, lg[-ln(1-Xt)] and lgR don’t show a good linear relationship. The parameter F(T) increases significantly with the increasing of relative crystallinity and n is almost unchanged. Besides, the F(T) of PET/CB composite is less than that of PET, while a is greater than that of PET. Comparing with Ozawa and Avrami equation, Mo method can better describe the non-isothermal crystallization of PET and PET/CB composite.