Crystallization and melting behavior of poly(butylene succinate)/silicon nitride composites: The influence of filler’s phase structure

• Si3N4 particles have obvious heterogeneous nucleation for PBS crystallization.
• Si3N4 particles do not significantly distort the crystalline parameters of PBS.
• Crystalline Si3N4 have higher heterogeneous nucleation effect than amorphous-Si3N4.

Poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) composites containing 10 wt% amorphous-Si3N4, α-Si3N4 and β-Si3N4 were prepared by melting mixing. The effect of Si3N4 phase structure on the crystallization and melting behavior of PBS was investigated by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Wide-Angle X-ray Diffraction (WAXD). The non-isothermal crystallization kinetics of PBS and PBS/Si3N4 composites was studied by Jeziorny methods. The crystallization activation energy and nucleation activity of PBS and PBS/Si3N4 composites were calculated according to Friedman and Dobreva methods, respectively. The results show that Si3N4 particles have obvious heterogeneous nucleation for PBS crystallization, increasing the crystallization temperature and reducing the crystallization activation energy. Among those Si3N4 particles studied, α-Si3N4 particles have the strongest heterogeneous nucleation for PBS crystallization, which indicate that the phase structure of Si3N4 particle have great influence on the crystallization behavior of PBS.