Surface roughness and morphology of polypropylene nanospheres: Effects of particles size

Abstract

Nanosphere of polypropylene was synthesised under controlled growth condition. Its molecular weight is equivalent to the commercial grade polypropylene. The SEM is conducted in order to inspect the surface morphology. The surface roughness, i.e. surface roughness amplitude parameters R _a (arithmetic average roughness) and root mean square roughness (RMS or R _q) at nanoscale was calculated for nanoparticles by AFM. It is found that the surface profiles depend on particle size and it increases with increasing particle size. The asperity teeth height R _p, valley R _v and RMS R _q of particles were also calculated and it was found that these parameters are particle size depended. The RMS values are found to be 6˙38 to 77˙72 Å as the particle size varies from 40 to 500 nm. The lower RMS values of polymer nanoparticles acknowledge the atomic scale chain folding. The surface roughness variability (R _q/R _a) of nanoparticles are also calculated and found to be above unity, which denotes an irregular spread of surface height.

Keywords

POLYPROPYLENE NANOSPHERES AFM SURFACE ROUGHNESS MORPHOLOGY SEM

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Pokhrel

M. R.

, Janik

and Bossmann

S. H.

: Macromolecules, 2000, 33, 3577–3584.

Chatterjee

and Doering

: Proc. IEEE, 1998, 86, 176–183.

Norris

I. D.

, Shaker

M. M.

, Ko

F. K.

and Macdiarmid

A. G.

: Synth. Met., 2000, 114, 109–114.

Kishimoto

and Shinya

: J. Int. Mater. Syst. Structr., 2001, 12, 271–275.

Kristiansen

, Zhang

Z. L.

and Liu

: Proc. IEEE Conf. on ‘Advanced packaging materials: processes, properties and inter-faces’, Atlanta, GA, USA, March 2005, IEEE, 209–213.

O'Farrell

C. P.

, Gerspacher

and Nikiel

: Kautsch. Gummi. Kunstst., 2000, 53, 701-706; 709–710.

Aminabhavi

T. M.

, Cassidy

P. E.

and Thompson

C. M.

: Rubber Chem. Technol., 1990, 63, 451–471.

Medalia

A. I.

: Rubber Chem. Technol, 1986, 59, 432–454.

Tabor

: J. Colloid Interf Sci., 1977, 58, 2–13.

10.

Briscoe

B. J.

and Panesar

S. S.

: J. Phys. D, 1992, 25D, A20–A27.

11.

Krupp

: Adv. Colloid Interf Sci, 1967, 1, 111–239.

12.

Johnson

K. L.

, Kendall

and Roberts

A. D.

: Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. A, 1971, 324A, 301–313.

13.

Mizes

: in ‘Advances in particle adhesion’, (ed. Ramani

D. S.

and Sharpe

L. H.

), 155; 1996, Sydney, Gordon & Breach.

14.

Zhang

, Niu

, Peng

, Jiang

, Tu

, Li

and Wu

: Acc. Chem. Res., 2001, 34, 249–256.

15.

, Ma

Q. J.

, Remsen

, Clark

and Wooley

: J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2004, 126, 6599–6607.

16.

Zhang

, Remsen

and Wooley

: J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2000, 122, 3642–3651.

17.

Buetuen

, Billingham

N. C.

and Armes

S. P.

: J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1998, 120, 12135–12136.

18.

Zhou

, Li

and Liu

: Macromolecules, 2000, 35, 3690–3696.

19.

Kar

K. K.

and Paik

: ‘A process for preparation of mocron sized high polymer’, Indian patent no. 2503/DEL/2004, 2004.

20.

Kar

K. K.

and Paik

: ‘A process for preparation of nanoparticles of higher molecular weight polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene’, Indian patent no. 3161/DEL/2005, 2005.

21.

Kar

K. K.

and Paik

: J. AppL Polym. Sci., 2007, 105, 1133–1143.

22.

Binnig

, Quate

and Gerber

: Phys. Rev. Lett., 1986, 56, 930–933.

23.

‘Surface texture (surface roughness, waviness and lay)’, ASME B46.1-1995, (revision of ASME B46.1-1985), American Society of Mechanical Engineers, New York, USA, 1 December 1995.

24.

‘Geometrical product specifications (GPS) - surface texture: profile method - terms, definitions and surface texture parameters’, ISO 4287–1997, 1997.