Open AccessConfined crystallization of polymers within anodic aluminum oxide templates
Author(s) -
Michell Rose Mary,
BlaszczykLezak Iwona,
Mijangos Carmen,
Müller Alejandro J.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of polymer science part b: polymer physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.65
H-Index - 145
eISSN - 1099-0488
pISSN - 0887-6266
DOI - 10.1002/polb.23553
Subject(s) - crystallization , nucleation , nanoporous , materials science , crystallization of polymers , polymer , chemical engineering , oxide , kinetics , anodic aluminum oxide , polymer chemistry , composite material , nanotechnology , chemistry , organic chemistry , metallurgy , medicine , physics , alternative medicine , pathology , quantum mechanics , fabrication , engineering
ABSTRACT In this article, a review of recent literature on confined crystallization within nanoporous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) templates is presented. For almost all infiltrated polymeric materials, crystal orientation within the nanopores is a function of pore diameter. T c and T m usually decrease and are a function of pore size. When no pore interconnection remains, the crystallization occur at large supercoolings in heterogeneity free environments. Hence, the nucleation mechanism changes from heterogeneous to surface or homogeneous nucleation. The crystallization kinetics of infiltrated polymers should be close to first order, since in confined environments nucleation is the determining step of the overall crystallization and Avrami indexes ( n ) of ∼1 (or lower in some cases) should be obtained. Examples are provided where these conditions have been met and first order kinetics ( n = 1) were measured as opposed to higher orders ( n = 3−4) for the same polymer in the bulk. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2014 , 52 , 1179–1194