Non-isothermal crystallization kinetics of polyamide 66/glass fibers/carbon black composites

Abstract

The non-isothermal crystallization of the polyamide 66 (PA66) reinforced with 15 mass% glass fibers and/or 0.4 mass% carbon black has been the object of a thermal analysis by differential scanning calorimetry with various cooling rates ranging from 2 to 25 °C min−1. The modified Avrami’s equation, Ozawa’s theory and Mo’s method were applied to study the non-isothermal crystallization kinetics of neat PA66 and the PA66 composites. The activation energies of non-isothermal crystallization were calculated by Kissinger method. The results showed that the Mo’s method can successfully account for the overall non-isothermal crystallization kinetics for neat PA66 and PA66 composites. The modified Avrami’s method and Ozawa’s approach as well did not apply satisfactorily. It was also revealed that GF and CB could accelerate the crystallization rates of PA66. The combined effect of GF and CB was shown to be stronger than that of GF only in spite of rather low CB content.