Mapping of chemically accessible regions in semicrystalline polymers

✍ Scribed by Narayan Sundararajan; S. Kay Obendorf

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 204 KB
• Volume: 36
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0887-6266
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0488(19980715)36:9<1443::aid-polb3>3.0.co;2-l

✦ Synopsis

Important chemical and mechanical properties in semicrystalline polymers are determined by the noncrystalline or nonordered regions. Hence, characterizing these regions is important in developing a morphological model to better define and predict the chemical and mechanical behavior of polymeric materials. With this objective, preferential tagging was accomplished by covalent linking of a heavy element to poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET). In scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), contrast was obtained using a low concentration of thallium (0.4%), the tagging element, thus providing a map of the more accessible regions within the semicrystalline structure. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and wide-angle x-ray scattering (WAXS) were used to characterize the PET film. Elemental analysis using energy dispersive x-ray analysis (EDAX) was used to confirm the presence of the heavy element in the tagged regions. The STEM imaging results were then compared with the characterization results from the DSC and WAXS measurements to gain an understanding of the domains and their size ranges in the semicrystalline microstructure of PET.