Author(s)

Nafaa Athmouni^1,3, Jianbin Song^2,3, Frej Mighri^1,2, Saïd Elkoun^1,4

¹Research Center for High Performance Polymer and Composite Systems, CREPEC, Laval University, Quebec, Canada.
²Department of Chemical Engineering, Laval University, Quebec, Canada.
³Department of Material Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Technology, Nanjing, China.
⁴Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sherbrooke University, Sherbrooke, Canada.

This work deals with isothermal and non-isothermal crystallization kinetics of electrically conductive polyvinylidene fluoride/poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PVDF/PET) based composites. It completes our previous work in which we related the crystallinity of these conductive PVDF/PET based composites to their through-plane resistivity [1]. Isothermal crystallization was described using the logarithmic form of the Avrami equation and it was observed that the crystallization rate of the PVDF phase inside the composite became slower compared to that of neat PVDF. In non-isothermal crystallization, the Avrami exponent of PVDF phase did not show any noticeable variation; however, that of PET phase, which contains the major part of the conductive carbon black (CB) and graphite (GR) additives, showed an evident decrease compared with neat PET. It was also observed that, at the same cooling rate, the crystallization rate of PVDF and PET phases inside the composite was slower than that of neat PVDF and PET.

Isothermal Crystallization, Non-Isothermal Crystallization, PVDF, PET, Crystallization Kinetics, Avrami Model, Bipolar Plate

Athmouni, N. , Song, J. , Mighri, F. and Elkoun, S. (2016) Isothermal and Non-Isothermal Crystallization Kinetics of Conductive Polyvinylidene Fluoride/Poly(Ethylene Terephthalate) Based Composites. Materials Sciences and Applications, 7, 8-19. doi: 10.4236/msa.2016.71002.