Method for characterizing melting transition and crystallization in a semicrystalline polymer

Abstract

A method for characterizing a melting transition in a semicrystalline polymer is disclosed. The method includes incorporating a fluorophore into the semicrystalline polymer, changing a temperature of the semicrystalline polymer to vary across a range of temperatures including a plurality of temperatures, and capturing an emission spectrum of the incorporated fluorophore at each temperature of the plurality of temperatures. The method also includes integrating each emission spectrum to determine a temperature-dependent integrated fluorescence intensity for the semicrystalline polymer, numerically differentiating the temperature-dependent integrated fluorescence intensity, and characterizing the melting transition of the semicrystalline polymer by identifying a stepwise change in value of the differentiated intensity. The semicrystalline polymer may be a thermoplastic. Incorporating the fluorophore into the semicrystalline polymer may include physically doping the semicrystalline polymer with the fluorophore or covalently labeling the semicrystalline polymer with the fluorophore.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.