CRYSTALLIZATION AND MELTING OF COLD-CRYSTALLIZED POLY(PHENYLENE SULFIDE)

In this study, we report the melting behavior of poly (phenylene sulfide), PPS, which has been cold-crystallized from the rubbery amorphous state. We find that the crystallization kinetics are faster for cold-crystallized PPS than for melt-crystallized material, due to formation during quenching of a short-range ordered, but noncrystalline, structure. We observe that the endothermic response of cold-crystallized PPS at a large undercooling consists of a low temperature endotherm, followed by an exothermic region, and by the main higher melting endotherm. The lower melting peak temperature of cold-crystallized PPS increases as the crystallization temperature increases, but the main upper melting peak temperature remains almost the same. The size of the exothermic region is strongly related to the degree of undercooling, and must be taken into account in order properly to determine the degree of crystallinity of the material prior to the scan. When the crystallization time is varied, we see a systematic decrease in the size of the main endotherm, and an increase in size of the lower melting endotherm. This suggests that a portion of the main endothermic response is due to reorganization during the scan. Annealing will not only increase the degree of crystallinity but also improve the crystal perfection; therefore the ability of an annealed sample to reorganize decreases as the annealing time increases. However, an additional third melting peak is seen when a cold-crystallized sample is annealed at high temperature for a sufficiently long residence time. The existence of the third melting peak suggests that more than one kind of distribution of crystal perfection may occur when PPS has been cold-crystallized and subsequently annealed.