Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

A New Approach to Estimating the Parameters of Structural Formations in Polyethylene Reactor Powder

Artem Borisov
ORCID logo ,
Yuri Boiko
* ORCID logo ,
Svetlana Gureva
ORCID logo ,
Ksenia Danilova
,
Victor Egorov
,
Elena Ivan'kova
ORCID logo ,
Vyacheslav Marikhin
,
Liubov Myasnikova
* ,
Ludmila Novokshonova
,
Elena Radovanova
,
Elena Starchak
,
Tatiana Ushakova
,
Maria Yagovkina
Version 1 : Received: 2 August 2023 / Approved: 3 August 2023 / Online: 4 August 2023 (08:28:30 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Borisov, A.; Boiko, Y.; Gureva, S.; Danilova, K.; Egorov, V.; Ivan’kova, E.; Marikhin, V.; Myasnikova, L.; Novokshonova, L.; Radovanova, E.; Starchak, E.; Ushakova, T.; Yagovkina, M. A New Approach to Estimating the Parameters of Structural Formations in HDPE Reactor Powder. Polymers 2023, 15, 3742. Borisov, A.; Boiko, Y.; Gureva, S.; Danilova, K.; Egorov, V.; Ivan’kova, E.; Marikhin, V.; Myasnikova, L.; Novokshonova, L.; Radovanova, E.; Starchak, E.; Ushakova, T.; Yagovkina, M. A New Approach to Estimating the Parameters of Structural Formations in HDPE Reactor Powder. Polymers 2023, 15, 3742.

Abstract

The morphology of virgin reactor powder (RP) of high-density polyethylene HDPE with MW = 160,000 g/mol was investigated with the help of DSC, SEM, SAXS and WAXS methods. The morphological SEM analysis showed, that the main morphological units of RP are macro- and micro-shish kebab structures with significantly different geometric dimensions, as well as individual lamellae of folded chain crystals. Quantitative analysis of an asymmetric SAXS reflection made it possible to reveal the presence of several periodic morphoses in the RP with long periods from 20 nm to 60 nm and to correlate them with the observed powder morphology. According to the DSC crystallinity data, the thickness of the lamellae in each long period was estimated. Their surface energy was calculated in the framework of the Gibbs-Thompson theory. The presence of regular and irregular folds on the surface of the different shish-kebab lamellae is discussed. The percentage of identified morphoses in the RP was calculated. It has been suggested that the specific structure of HDPE RP is due to the peculiarity of polymer crystallization during suspension synthesis in a quasi-stationary regime, in which local overheating and inhomogeneous distribution of shear stresses in a chemical reactor are possible.

Keywords

high-density polyethylene (HDPE); reactor powder; small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS); wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS); differential scanning calorimetry (DSC); scanning electron microscopy (SEM); long period; crystallinity; lamella; shish-kebab

Subject

Chemistry and Materials Science, Materials Science and Technology

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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