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Polymer morphology is a microscale property that is largely dictated by the amorphous or crystalline portions of the polymer chains and their influence on each other. Microscopy techniques are especially useful in determining these microscale properties, as the domains created by the polymer morphology are large enough to be viewed using modern ...
For example, atactic polypropylene is usually amorphous and transparent while syndiotactic polypropylene, which has crystallinity ~50%, is opaque. [30] Crystallinity also affects dyeing of polymers: crystalline polymers are more difficult to stain than amorphous ones because the dye molecules penetrate through amorphous regions with greater ease.
In case of atactic polypropylene, the methyl group (-CH 3) is randomly aligned, alternating (alternating) for syndiotactic polypropylene and evenly for isotactic polypropylene. This has an impact on the crystallinity (amorphous or semi-crystalline) and the thermal properties (expressed as glass transition point T g and melting point T m ).
Polyamorphism is also an important area in pharmaceutical science. The amorphous form of a drug typically has much better aqueous solubility (compared to the analogous crystalline form) but the actual local structure in an amorphous pharmaceutical can be different, depending on the method used to form the amorphous phase.
In condensed matter physics and materials science, an amorphous solid (or non-crystalline solid) is a solid that lacks the long-range order that is characteristic of a crystal. The terms " glass " and "glassy solid" are sometimes used synonymously with amorphous solid; however, these terms refer specifically to amorphous materials that undergo ...
Amorphous and semi-amorphous plastics are less resistant to chemical attack and environmental stress cracking because they lack a crystalline structure. Brittleness can be decreased with the addition of plasticizers , which increases the mobility of amorphous chain segments to effectively lower the glass transition temperature.
Phase transitions (phase changes) that help describe polymorphism include polymorphic transitions as well as melting and vaporization transitions. According to IUPAC, a polymorphic transition is "A reversible transition of a solid crystalline phase at a certain temperature and pressure (the inversion point) to another phase of the same chemical composition with a different crystal structure."
All polymers (amorphous or semi-crystalline) go through glass transitions. The glass-transition temperature ( T g ) is a crucial physical parameter for polymer manufacturing, processing, and use. Below T g , molecular motions are frozen and polymers are brittle and glassy.