Vahid Asadi - School of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Seyed Hassan Jafari - School of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Hossein Ali Khonakdar - Department of Polymer Processing, Iran Polymer and Petrochemical Institute,Tehran, Iran
Liane Häuβler - Leibniz-Institute of Polymer Research Dresden, Dresden, Germany

Biodegradable poly(ethylene succinate) (PES)/inorganic tungstan disufide nanotubes (INT-WS2)nanocomposites were prepared through solution casting method. Crystallization behavior of PES and its nanocomposites was studied with differential scannig calorimetry (DSC) under nonisothermal condition. Effect of cooling rate and INT-WS2 content on nonisothermal melt crystallization as well as cold cystallization was investigated in detail. It was found that crystallization peak temperatures were shifted to higher temperature range by presence of INTWS2and degree of crystallinity was increased particularly at higher cooling rates. The results indicate that the nonisothermal melt crystallization of PES was enhanced by the presence of INTWS2 due to the heterogeneous nucleation effect of nanotubes. Nucleation activity for each concentration was calculated through a method suggested from Dobreva et al. The results of the nucleation activity investigation showed that the nucleation activity was influenced by the nanotube content and the sample loaded with 0.5 wt.% of WS2 exhibited the highest nucleationactivity.

Crystallization, Poly(ethylene succinate), Tungstan disufide nanotubes,Nanocomposite