Nonisothermal crystallization of polytetrafluoroethylene in a wide range of cooling rates

Compared to other semicrystalline polymers, PTFE demonstrates a very fast crystallization process on cooling. This study explores for the first time the nonisothermal PTFE ultrafast crystallization under tremendously fast cooling rates (up to 800,000 K·s(-1)) achieved by using fast scanning calorimetry (FSC) and ultra-fast scanning calorimetry (UFSC). Regular DSC was also used to get crystallization at slower rates. The data obtained on a wide range of cooling rates (over 8 orders of magnitudes) help to get new knowledge about crystallization kinetics of PTFE. Both FSC and UFSC data show that it is impossible to bypass the crystallization and thus to reach a metastable glassy state even for the fastest cooling rate employed (800,000 K·s(-1)). The crystals formed under such conditions are slightly less stable than those produced under slower cooling rates, as reflected by a shift of the melting peak to lower temperature. The difference in crystal morphologies was confirmed by SEM observations. The variation of the effective activation energy (Eα) with the relative extent of crystallization reveals that PTFE crystallization follows a transition from regime II to regime III around 315-312 °C. Corroborated temperature dependences of Eα obtained respectively for crystallizations under slow and fast cooling rates were combined and fitted to the theoretical dependence of the growth rate derived from the Hoffman-Lauritzen theory.