Abstract
Nonisothermal melt crystallization kinetics of syndiotactic polypropylene (sPP)/alumina nanocomposites were investigated via differential scanning calorimetry. The addition of alumina nanoparticles significantly increases the number of nuclei and promotes the crystallization rate of sPP. Nonisothermal melt crystallization kinetics was analyzed by fitting the experimental data to a Nakamura model using Matlab. The average values of Avrami exponent n are 1.7 for both sPP and sPP/Al2O3 nanocomposites during slow cooling, which implies a two-dimensional growth is the predominant mechanism of crystallization following a heterogeneous nucleation. The two nanocomposites give n values equal to 2.3 during faster cooling, indicating that the main growth type taking place for sPP/alumina nanocomposites is also the two-dimensional growth. The subsequent melting behavior shows that the presence of alumina nanoparticles changed both the cold crystallization and the recrystallization of sPP. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012