Influence of dispersed organophilic montmorillonite at nanometer‐scale on crystallization of poly(L‐lactide)

We investigated the effects of surface‐treated organophilic clay on the crystallization of poly(L ‐lactide) (PLLA) in their hybrids. The natural nano‐clay in PLLA/clay hybrids acts as a heterogeneous nucleating agent to facilitate crystallization. On the contrary, extensive distributions of induction periods for nucleation are observed in the individual spherulites of neat PLLA and PLLA/organophilic clay hybrids. Therefore, it is suggested that nucleation type of neat PLLA and PLLA/organophilic clay hybrids implies nearly growth geometry as a homogeneous one. Further, under the presence of nano‐clay in their composites, PLLA matrix form the orthorhombic lattice structure corresponded to the α‐form crystal. Since this experimental fact implies little effect of the clay particles on polymorphism of PLLA crystal, the nucleating effect of the organophilic clay seems weaker than the natural clay itself. However, an increase in clay content enhances the growth rates of spherulite for hybrids. Consequently, most of hybrids exhibit an increase in overall crystallization rates at any crystallization temperature in spite of relatively lower nucleation rate of PLLA crystallites itself. In addition, the Avrami exponents (n) obtained by relatively low crystallization temperature ranged from 4 to 6, implying that the growth geometry was dominated sheaf‐like structure in early stage of isothermal crystallization. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2008. © 2008 Society of Plastics Engineers