The Polymer Society of Korea

Abstract

While isotactic-polystyrene and syndiotactic-polystyrene (i-PS and s-PS) are well-known semicrystalline and highly crystalline polymers with corresponded chain conformation, atactic-polystyrene (a-PS) is considered uncrystallizable. In recent years, our group developed a rapid thermal quenching method with entropy diluents, which generated stress and squeezing to stretch and crystallize amorphous PMMA to the 1-D hypo-crystal structure, in which the chain exhibited 90 % of stretched-favored trans-gauche conformation to extend up to 60 % of the contour length. In this research, we applied the same process for a-PS and obtained the highly stretched zig-zag morphology consistent with 70 % of trans conformation in the backbone chain. The crystals exhibited X-ray diffraction peak, melting peak at 250 ^oC and dramatical enhancement of mechanical properties.