Role of Controlled Diameter of Polyamide 6 (PA6) Fibers on the Formation of Interfacial Hybrid Crystal Morphology in HDPE/PA6 Microfibril Blend

• Published in: Industrial & engineering chemistry research 2019-05, Vol.58 (21), p.9056-9064
• Main Authors: Liu, Lei, Huang, Yan-Hao, Xie, Dan-Dan, Chen, Li-Bo, Chen, Rui, Liu, Zheng-Ying, Yang, Wei, Yang, Ming-Bo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0888-5885; 1520-5045
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.iecr.9b01045

In this work, polyamide 6 (PA6) fibers with various diameters distribution (0.18–5.6 μm) were initially prepared by using different hot drawing rates during the in-situ fiberforming process. The results showed that the PA6 fibers with smaller diameters were well-distributed in the high-density polyethylene (HDPE) matrix as the stretching rate increased. Hybrid shish-kebab (HSK) structures could be observed in a large scale when the diameters of fibril PA6 fillers ranged from 0.18 μm to 2.2 μm, and more-oriented structures were formed and retained as the microfiber diameter decreased. Interestingly, the surface of PA6 microfibers with a larger diameter (∼2.2 μm) can even induce hybrid structures without obeying the classical size-dependent soft epitaxy (SSE) mechanism absolutely. This work provides a new insight into tailoring the crystalline morphology of the polymer during melt processing.