Multiscale and Multistep Ordering of Flow-Induced Nucleation of Polymers
Dr. Kunpeng Cui and Prof. Liangbin Li’s paper “Multiscale and Multistep Ordering of Flow-Induced Nucleation of Polymers” has been selected as Cover of Chemical Reviews(Chem. Rev., 2018, 118, 1840–1886).
Flow-induced crystallization (FIC) is a typical nonequilibrium phase transition and a core industry subject for semicrystalline polymers. A fundamental understanding of FIC can benefit the research of nonequilibrium ordering in matter systems and help to tailor the ultimate properties of polymeric materials. The topic of FIC has been studied for more than half a century. Recently, there have been many developments in experimental approaches, such as synchrotron radiation X-ray scattering, ultrafast X-ray detectors with a time resolution down to the order of milliseconds, and novel laboratory devices to mimic the severe flow field close to real processing conditions. By a combination of these advanced methods, the evolution process of FIC can be revealed more precisely and quantitatively. The new findings are challenging the classical interpretations and theories that were mostly derived from quiescent or mild-flow conditions, and they are triggering the reconsideration of FIC foundations. This review mainly summarizes experimental results, advances in physical understanding, and discussions on the multiscale and multistep nature of oriented nuclei induced by strong flow. Furthermore, some theoretical progress and modeling efforts are also included.
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51325301, 51633009, 51573132 and 51227801) and the Key research and development tasks of MOST (2016YFB0302501).
Multiscale and multistep ordering of flow-induced nucleation of polymers.
