Isothermal crystallization kinetic modeling of poly(etherketoneketone) (PEKK) copolymer. (24th February 2017) - Choupin, T.
Abstract: Isothermal melt and cold crystallizations of a poly(etherketoneketone) (PEKK) copolymer prepared from diphenyl ether (DPE), terephthalic acid (T) and isophthalic acid (I) with a T/I ratio of 60/40 have been investigated by differential scanning calorimetry, wide-angle X-ray scattering and polarized optical microscopy. For the first time, the two-stage overall crystallization kinetics of PEKK taking into account effects of nucleation and crystal growth has been identified by using a modified Hillier type model. The primary crystallization stage is found to be an instantaneous two dimensional nucleation growth with an Avrami exponent of 2 whereas the secondary stage is found to be an instantaneous one dimensional nucleation growth with an Avrami exponent of 1. The evolution of the crystallization kinetic constants for two-stage crystallizations has been modeled according to the Hoffman and Lauritzen growth theory. Due to low crystallization kinetics, a crystallization induction time has been added to obtain a good fit with experimental data. Based on this modeling, Time-Temperature-Transformation (TTT) diagrams of the relative volume crystallinity have been established for the overall crystallization mechanism and also for the separated primary and secondary crystallization mechanisms providing an original crystallization mapping of the material. Graphical abstract: Highlights: A complete crystallization kinetics study of PEKK 60/40 crystallization process. A modified Hillier model taking into account the primary and the secondary crystallization. TTT diagrams of the crystallinity for separated primary and secondary crystallization.