title: How Chain-Folding Crystal Growth Determines the Thermodynamic Stability of Polymer Crystals.
abstract: Chain-folding is a habit of polymer crystallization, which yields limited lamellar thickness of polymer crystals and thus determines their thermodynamic stability. We performed dynamic Monte Carlo simulations of a lattice polymer model with chain-folded lamellar crystal growth stopped by a critical spacing of two parallel-oriented bars. We confirmed the critical spacing as minimum lamellar thickness (lmin) proposed previously in the Lauritzen-Hoffman (LH) model; however, the temperature dependence of excess lamellar thickness beyond lmin appears opposite to the prediction of the LH model. Moreover, it reproduces Strobl et al.'s experimental observations, but our lattice-model approach rules out any mesophase hypothesis. We proposed a kinetic model combining intramolecular secondary nucleation and stem elongation to explain this temperature-dependence behavior, which reconciles the controversial arguments on the microscopic mechanism of lamellar crystal growth of polymers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University , 210093 Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoming
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Albert-Ludwig-University of Freiburg , Hermann-Herder-Str. 3, 79104 Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Günter
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Reiter
authors.affiliation: Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Life Sciences, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University , 210093 Nanjing, China.
authors.forename: Wenbing
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hu