Crystallization Behavior of rare-earth doped luminous pigment/polyramide 6 composites

The crystallization behavior of well-dispersed rare-earth doped luminous pigment/polyamide 6 (PA6) composites prepared through in situ polymerization was investigated by DSC. The rare-earth doped luminous pigments could accelerate the forming of gamma form crystals and also had a great effect on the crystallinity and crystallization rate of PA6 composites. The Ozawa, Jeziorny, and Mo methods were used to analyze the non-isothermal crystallization kinetics. It was found that the Ozawa method was unsuitable for non-isothermal crystallization of PA6 composites. The results of Jeziorny analysis showed that the crystallization rates of PA6 composites increased when the luminous pigment content was larger than 5 wt.%. Mo's analysis also showed that the presence of the pigment shortened the crystallization time and accelerated the crystallization rate. Polarized optical microscopy showed that the spherulites became smaller with increasing of the luminous pigment amount due to the heterogeneous nucleation.