Study on the Crystallization Activation Energy of Poly (L-lactic acid) Nucleated with P-tert-butylcalix[8]arene

The crystallization activation energy (Δ E) of a polymer comprises the nucleation activation energy Δ F and the transport activation energy Δ E ^* . In this paper, the Δ E of poly (L-lactic acid) (PLLA) nucleated with nucleating agent p- tert-butylcalix[8]arene (tBC8) was calculated. The results showed that the Δ E of nucleated PLLA was 165.97 kJ/mol, which is higher than that of pure PLLA. The reason why Δ E of PLLA increased when incorporating nucleating agent was studied. The increment of glass transition temperature ( Tg) for nucleated PLLA revealed that the polymer chain mobility was restricted by tBC8, which was considered as the reason for the increase of Δ E*. Further, polyethylene glycol (PEG) was added to improve the chain mobility, thus eliminated the variation of the transport activation energy Δ E* caused by tBC8. Then the effect of the increment of crystallization temperature range on the increase of Δ F was also taken into consideration. It was concluded that both decreasing the mobility of chain segments and increasing the crystallization temperature range caused an increase of Δ E for PLLA/tBC8.