Effect of a nucleating agent on the crystallization behaviors of poly(L-lactide)

The effect of a nucleating agent on the crystallization behaviors of poly(L-lactide) was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry(DSC),and Avrami equation was used to calculate the half crystallization time(t1/2).The results showed that only 0.3% nucleating content can make the t1/2 of PLLA decrease from 61.4 min to 9.2 min.The crystalline morphology of different samples was observed by polarized optical microscopy,and the results demonstrated that the nucleating agent could enhance the crystallization speed of PLLA.In the same crystallization time,the amount of spherulites increased greatly with increasing nucleating agent content,while the dimension of spherulites decreased a lot.