Preparation, melting, glass relaxation and nonisothermal crystallization kinetics of a novel dendritic nylon-11

A novel dendritic nylon-11, DPA-11, is prepared from the melting copolycondensation of 11-aminoundecanoic acid and the 2nd generation poly(propyleneimine) dendrimer as the dendritic unit, with its melting, glass-transition and nonisothermal crystallization behaviors highlighted. DPA-11 is characterized using FTIR, TGA, WXRD and DSC. The results show that PDA-11 has excellent thermal stability, at room temperature its δ′-form crystal is predominant, and the dual melting processes and glass transition occur during the heating. The subsequent crystallization kinetic analysis with JMA, Ozawa and Mo methods demonstrates the mechanisms and crystallizability changing with the relative crystallinity, α, especially, during the primary and secondary crystallization stages. Moreover, applying the Vyazovkin method yields the dependence of the effective activation energy on crystallinity, from which the crystallization mechanisms are discussed in detail. Then the equilibrium melting temperature is determined, being 200.9 °C. Furthermore, the spherulitic growth analysis with the extended Hoffman–Lauritzen method produces the Regime I/II transition temperature of 158° C.