Abstract
Sol-gel transition and the structure of isotactic polypropylene (itPP) gels formed from toluene and o-xylene solutions were studied. Weight-average molecular weight range of samples used is from 25.8×104 to 50.1×104. A thermo-reversible gel was formed from a semi-dilute solution on cooling. Gel-melting temperature Tmg was measured and its dependency on polymer concentration as well as molecular weight was investigated. Tmg increased gradually with increasing polymer concentration and obeyed Eldridge-Ferry’s type of plot: the reciprocal absolute gel-melting temperature 1/Tmg had a linear relationship to the logarithm of volume fraction of polymer, while molecular weight dependency of Tmg was little. In a gel, many spherulites were observed, the spherulites were bound with crystalline ties, and a three-dimensional network structure was observed. In this crystalline network, a polymer solution was confined. It is concluded that the formation of spherulites and crystalline ties is conducive to gelation.
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