Constructing High-content, Highly Ordered Shish-Kebab Crystals during Hot-stretching <italic style="font-style: italic">via</italic> Varying Contents of Reserved Shish in Ultra-long Chain Ultra-high Molecular Weight Polyethylene Gel Systems

Chao-Wei Xing; Qiu-Yue Cui; Jia-Wei Gao; Ye-Shun Zhong; Jia-Jun Tang; Zi-Hao Gao; Yi-Guo Li; Zong-Bao Wang

doi:10.1007/s10118-025-3308-8

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Constructing High-content, Highly Ordered Shish-Kebab Crystals during Hot-stretching via Varying Contents of Reserved Shish in Ultra-long Chain Ultra-high Molecular Weight Polyethylene Gel Systems

RESEARCH ARTICLE | Updated：2025-07-14

- Constructing High-content, Highly Ordered Shish-Kebab Crystals during Hot-stretching via Varying Contents of Reserved Shish in Ultra-long Chain Ultra-high Molecular Weight Polyethylene Gel Systems
- Chinese Journal of Polymer Science Vol. 43, Issue 5, Pages: 778-792(2025)
- Affiliations：
  
  School of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315211, China
- Author bio：
  
  wangzongbao@nbu.edu.cn
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1007/s10118-025-3308-8
  CLC：
- Received：11 November 2024，
  
  Revised：2025-01-12，
  
  Accepted：22 January 2025，
  
  Online First：07 April 2025，
  
  Published：30 April 2025
- Accepted：
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Xing, C. W.; Cui, Q. Y.; Gao, J. W.; Zhong, Y. S.; Tang, J. J.; Gao, Z. H.; Li, Y. G.; Wang, Z. B. Constructing high-content, highly ordered shish-kebab crystals during hot-stretching via varying contents of reserved shish in ultra-long chain ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene gel systems. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. 2025, 43, 778–792

Chao-Wei Xing, Qiu-Yue Cui, Jia-Wei Gao, et al. Constructing High-content, Highly Ordered Shish-Kebab Crystals during Hot-stretching via Varying Contents of Reserved Shish in Ultra-long Chain Ultra-high Molecular Weight Polyethylene Gel Systems[J]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2025, 43(5): 778-792. DOI: 10.1007/s10118-025-3308-8.
Xing, C. W.; Cui, Q. Y.; Gao, J. W.; Zhong, Y. S.; Tang, J. J.; Gao, Z. H.; Li, Y. G.; Wang, Z. B. Constructing high-content, highly ordered shish-kebab crystals during hot-stretching via varying contents of reserved shish in ultra-long chain ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene gel systems. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. 2025, 43, 778–792 DOI： 10.1007/s10118-025-3308-8.

Chao-Wei Xing, Qiu-Yue Cui, Jia-Wei Gao, et al. Constructing High-content, Highly Ordered Shish-Kebab Crystals during Hot-stretching via Varying Contents of Reserved Shish in Ultra-long Chain Ultra-high Molecular Weight Polyethylene Gel Systems[J]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2025, 43(5): 778-792. DOI: 10.1007/s10118-025-3308-8. DOI：

摘要

Reserving high-content of long-chain shish crystals in UHMWPE gel films can induce the formation and orientation of more shish-kebab crystals. By introducing ultra-long chains into the UHMWPE gel system

adjusting the plasticization temperature

and optimizing the hot-stretching process

a high-content and highly ordered shish-kebab crystal structure is ultimately constructed.

Abstract

Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) is widely utilized in low-dimensional materials due to its ultra-long chain imparted excellent strength and modulus. By employing gel-molding technology with a gradient temperature control

this study successfully produced gel films with varying shish crystal contents of the UHMWPE with a molecular weight of 8.0 million. The structural evolution during film hot-stretching was investigated by

in-situ

wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD)

small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS)

ultra-small-angle X-ray scattering (USAXS)

and

ex-situ

methods of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The ultra-long molecular chains delay stress transfer during stretching but provide more nucleation sites for shish-kebab crystallization to form well-ordered shish-kebab crystals under high strain. The reserved high-content shish facilitates structural evolution

inducing the formation of highly-ordered shish-kebab crystals that eventually transfer into shish crystals in the later stage of stretching. The samples with low shish content

although the structural evolution is facilitated during stretching

predominantly result in newly formed shish-kebab crystals through melt recrystallization. However

some unoriented lamellae persists in unreserved samples stretching progress

leading to less ordered shish-kebab structures. By comparing with previous work of UHMWPE with low molecular weights

we demonstrate that the ultra-long molecular chains also play a key role on enabling the construction of highly-ordered shish-kebab crystals with high shish content during hot-stretching of UHMWPE gel films

providing new insights into processing control and optimization for engineering applications.

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Constructing High-content, Highly Ordered Shish-Kebab Crystals during Hot-stretching via Varying Contents of Reserved Shish in Ultra-long Chain Ultra-high Molecular Weight Polyethylene Gel Systems

DOI：10.1007/s10118-025-3308-8

摘要

Abstract

关键词

Keywords

references