Macromolecules, Vol.52, No.12, 4739-4748, 2019
Intramolecular and Intermolecular Packing in Polymer Crystallization
Recently, the chain-folding structure of C-13-labeled poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) with different molecular weights (M) of 46K (small, s), 90K (middle, m), and 320K g/mol (large, l) in the solution-grown crystals [Macromolecules 2018, 51, 8729-8737] was studied by solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (ssNMR). In this work, the chain-folding and packing structures, long period, and morphology of C-13-labeled s-, m-, and l-PLLA in the melt-grown crystals crystallized at T-c = 90 and 150 degrees C are investigated by ssNMR, small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), wide-angle Xray diffraction (WAXD), and polarized optical microscopy (POM), respectively. All the s-, m-, and l-PLLA adopt thermodynamically stable a crystals and large spherulites with a diameter of similar to 2 mm at T-c = 150 degrees C. A large supercooling induces kinetically favored disordered alpha' crystals and nodular structures for all three samples. By comparing the experimental C-13-C-13 double quantum (DQ) buildup data with the simulated ones, we found that all three PLLA samples with different M(w)s adopt adjacent re-entry structure with the same mean vwalue of successive adjacent re-entry number, n, of 1.5-2 in both alpha and alpha' crystals under the assumption of full adjacent re-entry, F = 100%. Through systematic studies on the chain-folding structure as functions of TT and M, it is concluded that the chain-folding process is a local event and is independent of the overall crystallization process. On the basis of the chain-folding and packing structures in both solution- and melt-grown crystals, contributions of the intramolecular and intermolecular packing to the order-disorder phenomenon of the overall packing structure will be discussed.