Effective enhancement of poly(bisphenol-A carbonate) crystallinity with polyamide-66 ionized nucleation through ion-dipole interactions coupled with plasticization

Abstract

Abstract To improve the crystallinity of poly(bisphenol-A carbonate) (PC). Polyamide-66 (PA-66) is ionized by CaCl2 to prepare the various degrees of ionization (DIs) of PA-66 ionenes (CaCl2–PA-66) as nucleating agents to co-modify PC with cholesterol nonanoate (CN) as plasticizers. Compared with non-ionized PA-66, CaCl2–PA-66 enhance the crystallinity of PC. Concretely, with the DI of CaCl2–PA-66 is raised from 0 to 37.2 mol%, the crystallinity of PC/CN/CaCl2–PA-66 (90/5/5 w/w/w) is first increased from 19.2% to 31.5% and then decreased to 16.9%. This is attributed to the stronger ion-dipole interactions between the ionized nucleating agents and PC, which enhance the compatibility and further dispersibility to create finer crystal with a denser distribution, and the nucleation efficiency is elevated thus facilitating the PC crystallization. However, when the DI of CaCl2–PA-66 is overly high (≥11.4 mol%), it leads to excessive ionic crosslinking, which reduces dispersibility and nucleation efficiency. Therefore, the modification of PC with a suitable DI of CaCl2–PA-66 can advance its crystallinity, which is a novel and effective approach.