Effect of Different Nucleating Agents on the Crystallization of Ziegler-Natta Isotactic Polypropylene

Table 1

Comparison of size and surface area of the four different nucleating agents.

	CNT	CNF	LiBe	Millad
(µm)	10	20	—	—
(µm)	0.050	0.120	10.0	15.0
(µg/µm^3)	2.1 × 10^6	2.1 × 10^6	1.1 × 10^6	1.1 × 10^6
Approximately
Vol of 1 particle (µm^3)	0.02	0.23	524	1,767
Wt of 1 particle (µg)	4.12^−8	47.50^−8	5.76^−4	19.40^−4
Number of particles in 100 mg	2.43^+12	21.10^+12	1.74^+8	0.51^+8
Surface area of 1 particle (µm^2)	1.60	7.5	314	707
Surface area in 100 mg (µm^2)	3.81^+12	1.59^+12	5.45^+10	3.64^+10
Ratio of surface areas	100	40	1.5	1

Ratio of surface areas of the different nucleating agents, to Millad, when having 100 mg of each, taking the surface area of 100 mg of Millad as 1. For example, 100 mg of CNT will have 100 times the surface area of 100 mg of Millad.
CNT and CNF were considered as cylinders and LiBe and Millad as spheres for the calculation of volume, weight, and surface area.
—: at any wt%, there will always be between 30 and 100 times more surface area in carbon nanoparticles than in LiBe or Millad.