Structure development and isothermal crystallization behaviour of compatibilized PET/expandable fluorine mica hybrid nanocomposite

Summary The compatibilized PET/expandable fluorine mica (ME) hybrid nanocomposite (CN) prepared by in situ polymerization technique showed a partially exfoliated structure of ME in PET matrix by XRD analysis, owing to its broad crystalline peak accompanied by an increase of d-spacing as compared to PET/ME uncompatibilized composite (UC). The analysis by TEM revealed a better dispersion of ME in PET for CN as compared to aggregates of ME in case of UC. Further, the isothermal crystallization behaviour studied using DSC for the same at different crystallization temperature (T _c,) revealed a significant decrease of crystallization half time and remarkable increase of crystallization rates (almost 2 times than pure PET) for CN in contrast to UC. The Avrami exponent n lowered to 2.3 for CN as compared to 3.1-3.4 for pure PET at various T _c. The activation energy (E _a) determined from Arrhenius equation reduced dramatically for CN. These various observations could be explained based on the nucleation efficiency by ME accompanied by different crystallization/growth process occurring in case of hybrid nanocomposite.