The kinetics of poly(ethylene terephthalate) and poly(e-caprolactone) melting is studied by means of differential scanning calorimetry and treated in the frameworks of a nucleation kinetic model. The study focuses on the temperature dependence of the effective activation energy of melting. A theoretical dependence is derived from the nucleation model and an experimental dependence from the Kissinger plot. Although the theoretical dependence fits accurately, the experimental dependence has some deviations from what is expected based on homogenous nucleation. The fit of the experimental data gives rise to the surface free energy that is significantly smaller than that obtained from crystallization data. A similar result is reported in other publications that make use of a homogeneous nucleation model for polymer melting. We demonstrate that a heterogeneous nucleation model is a more appropriate representation of the melting process and that its use resolves the problem of estimating the unusually small surface free energies.

Heterogensous nucleation in the polymer melting kinetics

248th National Meeting (2014)

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