Equilibrium melting temperature and spherulitic growth rate of poly(phenylene sulfide)

Abstract The equilibrium melting temperature ( T m ), through linear extrapolation method (HW) and nonlinear extrapolation method (MX) respectively, and the supercooling dependence of the spherulitic growth rate, in the context of the Lauritzen–Hoffman secondary nucleation theory, of poly(phenylene sulfide) (PPS) have been investigated by differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and a polarized optical microscope (POM) equipped with a CSS450 shear hot stage. The results show that the T m value obtained by MX method is more suitable for analyzing the regime transition behavior of PPS than that by HW method. And the regime I/II and II/III transitions can be really observed at T X = 526 and T X = 516 K, respectively, while analyzing the secondary nucleation theory of PPS by use of the T m value obtained by MX method.