This study presents a comparative analysis of the crystallization behavior of low‐density polyethylene (LDPE) and high‐density polyethylene (HDPE) nanocomposites. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were used as a nucleating agent to generate a nanohybrid shish‐kebab architecture. Materials characterizations were performed to evaluate the crystal morphology and crystallization kinetics using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), respectively. The lamellae of polyethylene were always found to grow laterally on the tube axis of CNTs. The parameters of the Avrami model for primary crystallization were determined. SEM indicated the crystal morphology changed from spherulitic to disk‐shaped with the addition of CNTs, while DSC‐based thermal examination indicated that the CNTs can provide nucleation sites to polyethylene to accelerate the crystal growth rate. HDPE was found to crystallize faster than LDPE on CNTs. The highly branched nature of LDPE's macromolecular chains are known to cause reduced chain mobility, which resulted in lower crystallinity values with smaller crystallite sizes for LDPE in this study. In comparison, the more linear HDPE chains have an increased polymer density and chain mobility, resulting in an improved nucleation ability of HDPE chain segments on CNTs.
Carbon nanotubes have been known to develop hierarchically ordered polymer nanocomposites by virtue of epitaxial crystallization. A unique product of CNT induced crystallization is generation of nanohybrid shish-kebab (NHSK) structure, which has gained tremendous attention owing to its unique applications. However, research faces major challenges in terms of producing tunable patterns on CNTs, which are largely governed by precise control of the crystallization parameters. Conventional methods of experimentation can mislead the effect of experimental conditions on NHSK structure. The effect of crystallization time, undercooling temperature and polymer concentration on the NHSK architecture of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and on a block copolymer, polyethylene-b-polyethylene glycol (PE-b-PEG), was studied in this work by applying the Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The present novel investigation mainly reports the statistical models that can be used to predict the different NHSK structural features such as diameter, periodicity, and thickness by including the interaction and quadratic effects of experimental variables. The developed models are in very good agreement with the experimental data and are statistically significant. Our novel approach can be used to better understand the interplay between various crystallization parameters for periodic patterning on carbon nanotubes to generate tunable hierarchical structures.
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