Crystalline Morphology and Crystallization Characteristics of In-situ Blends of Anionic Polyamide 6 with Noncrystallizable Semiaromatic Polyamide Copolymer

A noncrystallizable semiaromatic polyamide copolymer (NSAP) was dissolved in molten caprolactam, and PA6/NSAP blends were produced in-situ via the anionic ring-opening polymerization of caprolactam. The presence of a single loss tangent (tanδ) peak measured by means of dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) proves the miscibility between PA6 and NSAP in the blends. It was found that there existed drastic changes in the crystallographic form and crystallization kinetics for the in-situ blends, e. g., when 20% NSAP was added, nearly all crystallites existed in the γ form and the crystallization could hardly occur upon cooling even at a rate of 2.5 °C/min. Moreover, cold crystallization appears during the subsequent heating, and its melting point is 40 °C lower than that of the virgin system. On the other hand, the size of the spherulites only decreases modestly. It is suggested that the introduction of irregular stiff segments originated from NSAP into PA6 macromolecule chain, which resulted from transamidation during the polymerization play a dominant role in the drastic change of crystallization kinetics and the resultant morphology of the in-situ blends.