Time resolved WAXS study of the role of mesophase in oriented crystallisation of poly(ethylene terephthalate-co-isophthalate) copolymers

A. Mahendrasingam, D. J. Blundell, C. Martin, V. Urban, T. Narayanan, W. Fuller

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

Poly(ethylene terephthalate-co-isophthalate) copolymers containing up to 18 mol% isophalate have been drawn at 90 °C at a deformation rate of ∼15 s-1 while recording two dimensional wide angle X-ray scattering patterns. All polymers, including homopolymer controls, show the development of an oriented smectic mesophase during the last stages of deformation. After the end of deformation, the mesophase decays and is replaced by oriented triclinic crystals which increase according to first order transformation kinetics. The characteristic meridional spacing of the smectic mesophase reduces systematically with increasing isophthalate comonomer and indicates that the comonomer participates in the smectic structure. Unlike isotropic crystallisation from the melt, the crystallinity and crystallisation rate show little variation with comonomer content. This is attributed to the fact that both monomers participate in the intermediate smectic mesophase.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)6044-6049
Number of pages6
JournalPolymer
Volume46
Issue number16
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 25 2005

Funding

We thank Dr D H MacKerron and Dr S Jenkins for providing the samples. This work was supported by the allocation of beam time at the ESRF. We are grateful to MG Davies, EJT Greasley, and MP Wallace for technical support.

Keywords

  • PET
  • Smectic mesophase
  • WAXS

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