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Entanglement dynamics in ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene as revealed by dielectric spectroscopy

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journal contribution
posted on 2018-07-17, 14:35 authored by Stavros Drakopoulos, Georgios C. Psarras, Giuseppe Forte, Ignacio Martin-Fabiani, Sara Ronca
With the help of Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy, it has been possible to study the molecular dynamics of disentangled Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene in a wide temperature and frequency range. Catalytic ashes of aluminum oxide act as dielectric probes, allowing the identification of five different processes: an αc-process due to movements in the crystalline phase, two γ-processes attributed to amorphous chain portions close to the crystalline lamellae, and two β-processes that we have attributed to the disentangled and entangled amorphous phases. The entanglement formation has been followed by isothermal runs and a model that predicts the energy spent to form entanglements as a function of time and temperature is thereby proposed. This model allowed us to calculate the associated activation energy of the entanglement process. Our work advances further the understanding of entanglement dynamics of ultra-high molecular weight polymers, and the proposed model could prove useful to describe other similar processes such as cross-linking.

Funding

This project has been funded by the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC), grant EP/K034405/1.

History

School

  • Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering

Department

  • Materials

Published in

Polymer

Citation

DRAKOPOULOS, STAVROS X. ... et al, 2018. Entanglement dynamics in ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene as revealed by dielectric spectroscopy. Polymer, 150, pp.35-43.

Publisher

Elsevier (© The Authors)

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/

Acceptance date

2018-07-05

Publication date

2018-07-06

Notes

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Elsevier under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

ISSN

0032-3861

Language

  • en

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