Crystallinity determination in polymers and a quantitative comparison for polyethylene

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Abstract
A review is given of methods most often used in determining the crystallinity of polymers. In general, emphasis is placed on specific features peculiar to the various techniques rather than experimental aspects. Because of the considerable and increasing use of differential scanning calorimetry, enthalpic methods of crystallinity determination are considered in some detail.The need for a critical selection of parameters representing the fully amorphous and crystalline states is emphasised. This selection can be made for polyethylene, and results of crystallinity determinations using several methods are given for this polymer. Agreement is generally good for unoriented melt‐crystallised material (the n.m.r. value is, as expected, anomalous). Interfacial effects are therefore negligible and the structure is adequately represented by a simple two‐phase model. Complications arise when polymer is oriented (single crystals grown from solution are included here) and there is little correlation between the various crystallinities.

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