Display omitted •Heat transfer of static layer melt crystallization in tubular crystallizer.•Structure of crystal layer with large amounts of bubbles.•Model correlating growth rate with physical and experimental parameters.•Effective thermal conductivity of crystal layer.•Four distinct stages in the process of static layer melt crystallization. The growth behaviors of crystal layers during static layer melt crystallization was studied from the perspectives of morphology structure, growth rates and temperature evolution. The temperature distributions of the melt and crystal layer were deduced. With these results, the heat transfer during crystallization was analyzed by considering the relative influences of natural convection, heat conduction in the melt and latent heat of crystallization. A model correlating growth rate with physical and experimental parameters was derived based on energy conservation. Effective thermal conductivity of crystal layers was evaluated. It was confirmed that the structure and density of the crystal layer can significantly affect the thermal conductivity. According to the temperature curves of melt, the static layer melt crystallization process in a tubular crystallizer can be divided into four stages as nucleation stage, fast growth stage, slow growth stage and steady state stage.