Direct melt crystal growth of isotactic polybutene-1 trigonal phase

The morphology, crystalline structure and crystal growth kinetics of melt-crystallized thin isotactic polybutene-1 films have been studied with transmission electron microscopy, electron diffraction and optical microscopy. It is demonstrated that a bypass of tetragonal phase crystallization and direct melt crystal growth of the trigonal phase can be achieved via self-seeding at atmospheric pressure using solution-grown trigonal crystals as nuclei. Electron microscopy and optical microscopy observations show that melt-crystallized isotactic polybutene-1 single crystals of the trigonal phase have rounded or hexagonal morphologies around 75 degrees C. The growth rate of trigonal crystals in the melt has been obtained by in-situ optical microscopy. The growth rate of trigonal crystals in the melt is 1/100 and 1/1000 that of tetragonal crystals in the melt around 70 and 90 degrees C, respectively. (c) 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.