Study of the Molecular Weight Influence on the Formation of the ß-polymorph in Metallocenic Isotactic Polypropylene

摘要

Isotactic polypropylene, iPP, is one of the most important thermoplastic polymers due to its low manufacturing cost and rather versatile properties. iPP exhibits a very interesting polymorphic behavior depending on the polymerization procedure, thermal history and use of different nucleating agents. Recently, studies on different aspects of the iPP β-polymorph have been published [1, 2]. This paper completes these previous works by analyzing the formation of the β-polymorph starting from samples of metallocenic iPP of different molecular weight. We also consider the effect of the cooling rate in the appearance of β-polymorph in the iPP samples that were studied.