Zhang, Huanhuan, Wang, Songjie, Zhang, Shaoyuan, Ma, Ruixue, Wang, Yaming, Cao, Wei, Liu, Chuntai, and Shen, Changyu
The effect of a self-assembly nucleating agent, N , N ′, N ″-tricyclohexyl-1,3,5-benzenetricarboxylamide (BTCA), on the crystallization behavior of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) was probed by time-resolved Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and wide angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD). The vibrational changes associated with inter- and intra-chain interactions during crystallization were monitored. In the initial period of crystallization, the order of intensity changes is as follows: 1458 cm −1 > 1210 cm −1 » 921 cm −1 , 1458 cm −1 ∼ 1210 cm −1 > 921 cm −1 , and 1458 cm −1 ∼ 1210 cm −1 ∼ 921 cm −1 for neat PLA, PLAs containing 0.1 wt% and 0.3 wt% BTCA, respectively. This indicates that BTCA can accelerate both the formation of skeletal conformational-ordered structure and, especially, the 10 3 helix one. The incorporation of BTCA changes the crystallization mechanism but has no impact on the crystal form of PLA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]