Optical monitoring of polypropylene crystallization during injection molding

The nonisothermal crystallization of polypropylene resins, i-PP, during injection molding, using an optical device inserted in the injection mold cavity was monitored. The device detected the change of optical properties which occurs in polymers during their crystallization process; thus the intensity of a laser beam after it passed through the crystallizing polymer was measured during an injection molding cycle. The collected light intensity after the end of the cycle was correlated with the morphologies and final crystallinity degree of the samples. The influence of nucleating agents and the change of the parameters of the injection molding process on the morphology and optical signals were also investigated. The morphologies were analyzed by polarized light optical microscopy, PLOM The % of crystallinity of the samples was measured by wide angle X-rays diffraction, WAXS. It was concluded that the optical device was sensible to different polymer crystallization kinetics, morphology type, and changes in the injection molding parameters. It was also found that the mold temperature and packing pressure and time were the factors that affected most the kinetics of crystallization of these polymers in this particular disk geometry. The WAXS results showed that the lower the final light intensity the higher the % of crystallinity in the samples. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 48:257266, 2008. (c) 2007 Society of Plastics Engineers.