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Electret charge stability has been related to the size of the spherulites in polypropylene. As the size of the spherulites is decreased the stability is increased. This is seen for isothermal conditions at 90 °C and 120 °C as well as for 90 % relative humidity at 50 °C. The charge release temperature is also increased in thermally stimulated voltage discharge experiments as the size of the spherulites is decreased. The size of the spherulites is controlled though the cooling rate from polypropylenes liquid state.

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Through mixing isotactic-polypropylene (i-PP) and atactic-polypropylene (a-PP), we have demonstrated the importance of the crystallinity in polypropylene as an electret material. Samples with crystallinities between 7 % and 47 % were used. A high degree of crystallinity in polypropylene, used as an electret, gives a better charge stability with respect to temperature and humidity changes. The semicrystalline i-PP significantly outperforms a-PP regarding charge stability. a-PP is an amorphous polymer. By mixing a-PP and i-PP, the degree of crystallinity can be controlled, while all other sample preparation processes and characteristics can be identical. This is important since the performance of an electret material is sensitive to its previous process history. Activation energies used for predicting the thermal potential decay are determined from thermally stimulated current and isothermal potential decay experiments. Activation energies from 0.98 eV to 1.41 eV were determined. From these values, a very good agreement was achieved between the experimental potential decay at room temperature for more than 290 days, and a theoretical estimation of the potential decay.