Shear flow and carbon nanotubes synergistically induced nonisothermal crystallization of poly(lactic acid) and its application in injection molding

The effect of shear flow and carbon nanotubes (CNTs), separately and together, on nonisothermal crystallization of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) at a relatively large cooling rate was investigated by time-resolved synchrotron wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) and polarized optical microscope (POM). Unlike flexible-chain polymers such as polyethylene, and so on, whose crystallization kinetics are significantly accelerated by shear flow, neat PLA only exhibits an increase in onset crystallization temperature after experiencing a shear rate of 30 s^-1, whereas both the nucleation density and ultimate crystallinity are not changed too much because PLA chains are intrinsically semirigid and have relatively short length. The breaking down of shear-induced nuclei into point-like precursors (or random coil) probably becomes increasingly active after shear stops. Very interestingly, a marked synergistic effect of shear flow and CNTs exists in enhancing crystallization of PLA, leading to a remarkable increase of nucleation density in PLA/CNT nanocomposite. This synergistic effect is ascribed to extra nuclei, which are formed by the anchoring effect of CNTs' surfaces on the shear-induced nuclei and suppressing effect of CNTs on the relaxation of the shear-induced nuclei. Further, this interesting finding was deliberately applied to injection molding, aiming to improve the crystallinity of PLA products. As expected, a remarkable high crystallinity in the injection-molded PLA part has been achieved successfully by the combination of shear flow and CNTs, which offers a new method to fabricate PLA products with high crystallinity for specific applications.