Synthesis of a novel nucleating agent with thermotropic crystalline liquid behavior and its influence on the crystalline of polyethylene - (II) The effect of liquid crystalline nucleating agent on the behavior of crystallization and morphology of HDPE

The crystallization kinetics, morphology and thermal stability of the binary system consisting of the commercial high density polyethylene (HDPE) and a novel liquid crystalline nucleating agent, poly(4-methoxy-diphenoneoxycarbonyl phenyl acrylate)(PACDHP), were investigated by means of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and hot stage polarized optical microscopy (HS-POM). The increase in both the crystallization temperature and crystallinity for HDPE were observed in the compositions between 0.25% and 0.5% of PACDHP. It is also found that the crystal size of HDPE can be effectively controlled by the amount of nucleating agent added. The experimental data demonstrates that PACDHP can indeed act as a nucleating agent for HDPE.