Nucleating ability of cork in polypropylene-based composites

Abstract

The nucleating activity (Φ) of cork-polymer composites (CPC) in a polypropylene (PP) matrix was analyzed by Dobreva and Gutzow method. CPC with 15 %wt of cork powder was used in this study. The non-isothermal crystallization behaviour was studied using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) at four different cooling rates (5, 10, 15 and 20°C/min). Results show that cork acted as an active surface by revealing Φ value lower than 1. This suggests that cork can act as a nucleating agent during non-isothermal crystallization.