Publication

Abstract : The synergistic effect of multiscale fillers on the kinetics of non-isothermal crystallization of polypropylene (PP) reinforced with microscale glass fibres (GF) and nanoscale halloysite nanotubes (HNT) is investigated in this study. The glass fibre concentration is set at 20 mass% and that of HNT at 2.5 mass% in hybrid multiscale composites, and the crystallization kinetics of composites are analysed at different cooling rates. The lower critical free energy barrier for the formation of critical nuclei size and faster stable nuclei formation is determined for nano- and hybrid composites. The kinetics of crystallization for hybrid composite are best explained by Mo’s model, while Avrami and Ozawa could explicate the kinetics of initial stages of crystallization. The dependence of effective activation energy on the extent of relative crystallization for micro-, nano- and hybrid composites was explored via Friedman model. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis shows the ability of HNT to induce and alpha and Beta crystals and the ability of multiscale fillers to reduce the crystal sizes without affecting the standard lattice planes of neat polypropylene.