Semicrystalline polymers – Structure formation, crystallization and dynamics
rehearsal Mareen Schäfer
Location: MLUconf
Time: 15.20 – 17.00
The macroscopic properties of semicrystalline polymers are strongly influenced by their final morphology. A relevant factor for the structure formation are dynamics during the crystallization process as well as in the final semicrystalline state. Additionally, the morphology is strongly influenced by the chemical structure of the polymer.
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a powerful tool to study the dynamics and crystalline structure of semicrystalline polymers, especially for complex systems such as random copolymers or comb-like polymers. This is exemplarily shown on random isodimorphic butanediol-succinate / butandiol-adipate (BS/BA) copolymers (PBSA), where the application of several NMR experiments revealed that the copolymer exhibits an asymmetric co-unit inlcusion. BS-units can be incorporated into BA-rich crystals, whereas BA-units are completely excluded from BA-rich crystals. This asymmetry also correlates with the detected changes in the morphology.
