AbstractBicyclic [2,2,1] heptane di-carboxylate (commercial product name: HPN- 68) is a novel nucleating agent with high nucleation efficiency for isotactic polypropylene (iPP). In this paper, the non-isothermal crystallization kinetics of virgin iPP and iPP nucleated with HPN-68 were investigated by means of a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC).The Caze method was used to analyze the non-isothermal crystallization kinetics. The results show that addition of HPN-68 can increase the crystallization peak temperature (Tp) of iPP greatly under the same cooling rate. Under non-isothermal conditions, the addition of HPN-68 changes the spherulite growth pattern of iPP. For virgin iPP, the growth pattern is mainly spontaneous nucleation followed by three-dimensional spherulite growth, while for iPP nucleated with HPN-68, the growth pattern is mainly heterogeneous nucleation followed by three-dimensional spherulite growth.