Spherulites are the most common crystalline morphology and thus the visual expression of crystal structures for polymers. The diversified patterns have provided intuitive morphology probes for various crystallization behaviors, while the correlations between them are still needed to be enriched. In this work, the complicated spherulitic morphology of poly(propylene fumarate) (PPF), which is sensitive to crystallization temperature, is investigated. PPF melt, respectively, crystallizes into rough spherulites, regularly banded spherulites, and spherulites containing both two kinds of morphology at low, high, and mediate temperatures. By systematically assaying, it is clear that the growth axis along the radial direction changes from a-axis to b-axis as the crystallization temperature increases, which leads to the formation of unique crystallization-temperature-dependent spherulites. Based on detailed characterization of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, the packing state of the specific hydrogen bonds of “C=C-H⋯O=C-C=C” in PPF crystal lattices is determined, and furthermore, the mechanism for temperature-dependent selection of growth axes for PPF spherulites in melt is reasonably speculated.

球晶是最常见的晶体形态，因此是聚合物晶体结构的视觉表达。多样化的模式为各种结晶行为提供了直观的形态学探针，而它们之间的相关性仍然需要丰富。在这项工作中，研究了对结晶温度敏感的聚富马酸丙二酯（PPF）的复杂球晶形态。PPF熔体分别在低温，高温和中温下结晶为粗糙的球晶，规则带状球晶和同时包含两种形态的球晶。通过系统地分析，很明显，沿径向方向的生长轴从a轴变为b轴随结晶温度的升高而增加，这导致形成独特的取决于结晶温度的球晶。根据傅立叶变换红外光谱的详细表征，确定了PPF晶格中“ C = CH = O = CC = C”特定氢键的堆积状态，并进一步研究了随温度变化选择生长轴的机理对于熔体中的PPF球晶，有合理的推测。