Competitive effect of calcium lactate and epoxidized soil bean oil on crystallization kinetics of polypropylene

The effect of calcium lactate (CL) and epoxidized soil bean (ESO) on the crystallization kinetics of polypropylene (PP) was investigated by using polarized optical microscope (POM) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The experiments were performed under both non-isothermal and isothermal conditions. The development of spherulitic microstructure and crystallization kinetics were influenced by both CL and ESO. CL was an efficient nucleating agent for the crystallization of PP. The addition of CL facilitated faster spherulite growth and crystallization rate, while reduced the spherulite size. An opposite performance was discovered with the incorporation of ESO. Nucleation effect of CL on the PP crystallization was less effective with the presence of ESO. Compared with PP/CL, PP/CL/ESO provided a large spherulite size, slow spherulite growth, and a low crystallization rate. This is attributed to the ESO inhibited the nucleation site of CL. However, the degree of crystallinity and the Avrami exponents remained unchanged with the inclusion of both CL and ESO.