Non-Isothermal Crystallization Kinetics of Polyamide 6/Graphene Nanoplatelets Nanocomposites Obtained via In Situ Polymerization: Effect of Nanofiller Size

Thermoplastic resin transfer molding (T-RTM) technology was applied to synthesize graphene nanoplatelets-based nanocomposites via anionic ring-opening polymerization (AROP). Polyamide 6 (PA6) was obtained by AROP and was used as the polymeric matrix of the developed nanocomposites. The non-isothermal crystallization behavior of PA6 and nanocomposites was analyzed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Nanocomposites with 0.5 wt.% of graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) with two different diameter sizes were prepared. Results have shown that the crystallization temperature shifted to higher values in the presence of GNPs. This behavior is more noticeable for the nanocomposite prepared with smaller GNPs (PA6/GN). The crystallization kinetic behavior of all samples was assessed by Avrami and Liu's models. It was observed that GNPs increased the crystallization rate, thus revealing a nucleating ability, and also validated the reduction of half-time crystallization values. Such tendency was also supported by the lower activation energy values determined by Friedman's method.