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abstracts
FTIR/SAXS/WAXD simultaneous measurement system has been developed for the study of the structural phase transition behaviors of soft materials including crystalline polymers. The system consists of a transmission-type miniature FTIR spectrometer set around the sample stage and the 2-dimensional detectors for WAXD and SAXS measurements in a synchronized mode, as shown in Figure. The infrared and X-ray beams can pass through the same position of a sample, which is set on the various types of equipments such as a stretcher, a heater, a temperature-jump cell for isothermal crystallization, etc. The system has been successfully applied to the studies of the structural evolution processes of crystalline polymers. For example, an intimate relationship has been clarified between the structural change in the crystal lattice and the change in lamellar stacking mode during the stress-induced phase transition of poly(tetramethylene terephthalate). Another example is the study of phase transition of aliphatic nylons in the heating and cooling processes. So far the aliphatic nylons were considered to show the phase transition at a so-called Brill transition point, but the simultaneous measurement revealed another phase transition occurring in a temperature region immediately below the melting point. The structural evolution has been also studied for the isothermal crystallization process of crystalline polymer from the melt, as seen in the case studies of polyethylene, nylon, polyester, and so on. The concrete description was made for the regularization process viewed from the various hierarchical levels of molecular chain conformation, chain packing mode, and lamellar stacking mode or higher-order structure.
abstracts
The purpose of this study is clarification of crystallization behaviors of linear polymers in spin-coating film-forming processes on the molecular scale by time-resolved measurements of grazing-incidence small-angle and wide-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS and GIWAXS: GISWAXS) measurements using synchrotron radiation. A sample used in this study was a commercially-available poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (P3HB) (Sigma-Aldrich, Mw=437,000, Mw/Mn=1.67, Tg= 276 K) which was a biobased and biocompatible polyester. By spin-coating at rotational speeds of 1000 - 4000 rpm with using 0.49, 1.0, and 2.1wt% chloroform solutions of the P3HB, P3HB thin films with thicknesses of ca. 30 -600 nm were formed on silicon substrates. In these spin-coating processes at 296K, GISAXS and GIWAXS patterns from the sample on the substrate were simultaneously detected at BL45XU of SPring-8 (Hyogo, Japan). At the beginning of spin-coating, an isotropic scattering pattern from the solution was observed. Next, anisotropic Bragg reflections from oriented orthorhombic crystals of P3HB appeared and increased in intensity for several tens seconds. This indicated that P3HB chains crystallized as chloroform evaporated from the sample. It was also found that P3HB orthorhombic crystal having edge-on orientation was preferentially formed in thinner films. When the rotational speed of the substrate increased, the apparent induction period of crystallization slightly increased and the crystal growth rate decreased. This implied that the chain mobility of P3HB for crystallization might reduce due to a reduction in quantity of the solvent molecules and an increase in magnitude of the centrifugal force. These results obtained in this research would be important knowledge to improve film processing technologies for biobased polymeric materials.
