Confined crystallization in polymer nanolayered films: A review

Recent advances utilizing forced assembly multilayer coextrusion have led to the development of a new approach to study the structure–property relationships of confined polymer crystallization. Confinement of crystalline polymer materials in layer thicknesses ranging from hundreds to tens of nanometers thick, resulted in multilayer films possessing enhanced gas barrier properties. The enhanced gas barrier has been attributed to nanolayer confinement of the crystalline polymer resulting in a highly ordered intralayer lamellae orientation extending over micron or larger scale areas. Research into the confined crystallization mechanism of the multilayered polymer films has resulted in several material case studies as well as an understanding of the chemical and thermodynamic parameters that control the degree and rate of the confinement in multilayer polymer systems. This review highlights our recent studies on the confinement of poly(ethylene oxide), poly(ε-caprolactone), polypropylene, and poly(vinylidene fluoride) polymers in multilayered films.