Banded Spherulites of Electrospun Poly(trimethylene terephthalate)/Carbon Nanotube Composite Fiber Mats
writer：Defeng Wu, Tao Yang, Yurong Sun, Tiejun Shi, Weidong Zhou, Ming Zhang
keywords：poly(trimethylene terephthalate); carbon nanotubes; composites; electrospinning; banded spherulites.
source：期刊
specific source：Polymer International
Issue time：2011年
Polymer International, 2011, 60(10), 1497-1503.
ABSTRACT:
The crystallization of poly(trimethylene terephthalate) (PTT) composites containing carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were studied in this work. The electrospinning technology was employed to fabricate thin film samples with well-embedded CNTs for the spherulite observations using atom force microscopy (AFM). The results show that the composites present higher overall crystallization rate than that of the neat PTT due to the nucleation effect of CNTs. The banded spherulites can be observed on both the neat PTT and the composites. The presence of CNTs does not change the twisting mode of PTT crystal, but reduces band spacing and twist period. This is attributed to the enhanced fold staggering level of lamellae caused by the narrowed lamellae size and accelerated spherulite growth, which is further confirmed by the analysis through the secondary nucleation theory.
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http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pi.3108/abstract