Yes / The structural formation and development of isotactic polypropylene (iPP) upon the micro-injection molding process was investigated at different mold temperatures and molecular weights utilizing a real-time synchrotron radiation small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) technique combined with a customized micro-injection molding apparatus. Shish-kebab structure and parent-daughter lamellae were found to be formed during micro-injection molding for all iPP samples. In the case of kebab lamellae, a considerable growth in the long period and in the average thickness of lamellar crystallites and amorphous domains is observed at initial stages of crystallization for samples molded at varying temperatures. This effect is caused by the successive formation of thin lamellae in the outer layer and thick lamellae in the inner layer during the manufacturing process as evidenced by the spatial distribution of the crystalline lamellae across the thickness. In addition, the length of the shish formation increases remarkably at the onset of crystallization, the extent of which is dependent on the mold temperature. Despite the large changes of the lamellar stacks and the shish misorientation, the final length of the shish remains essentially unchanged when varying mold temperature. Since there is a critical orientation molecular weight above which the chains are stretched and oriented to form stable shish, the iPP sample with a low molar mass exhibits an overall decrease in the scattering intensity of SAXS patterns compared to the high molecular weight polypropylene. / This work is financially sponsored by the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFB0704200), National Natural Science Foundation of China (21674119, 21790342 and 51525305), and Royal Society Newton Advanced Fellowship, United Kingdom (NA150222).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/19031 |
| Date | 27 June 2022 |
| Creators | Zhao, X., Liao, T., Yang, X., Coates, Philip D., Whiteside, Benjamin R., Barker, D., Thompson, Glen P., Jiang, Z., Men, Y. |
| Publisher | Elsevier |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article, Accepted manuscript |
| Rights | © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license., CC-BY-NC-ND |
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