Are our common plastics crystalline or amorphous? First, we need to understand what is the essential difference between crystalline and amorphous.
Crystals are atoms, ions or molecules that are arranged in space according to a certain periodicity to form a solid with a certain regular geometric shape during the crystallization process. Amorphous is an amorphous body, or amorphous, amorphous solid, which is a solid in which the atoms are not arranged in a certain spatial order, corresponding to a crystal.
Common crystals are diamond, quartz, mica, alum, table salt, copper sulfate, sugar, monosodium glutamate and so on. Common amorphous are paraffin, rosin, asphalt, rubber, glass and so on.
The distribution of crystals is very wide, and most of the solid substances in nature are crystals. Gases, liquids and amorphous substances can also be transformed into crystals under certain suitable conditions. The three-dimensional periodic structure of the arrangement of atoms or molecules in the crystal is the most basic and essential feature of the crystal.
Common amorphous bodies include glass and many polymer compounds such as styrene and so on. As long as the cooling rate is fast enough, any liquid will form an amorphous body. Among them, it will be too cold, and the lattice or skeleton in the thermodynamically favorable crystalline state will lose the speed of motion before the atoms are arranged, but the approximate distribution of the atoms in the liquid state is still retained.
Therefore, we can judge that the common plastics in life are amorphous.
Post time: Jul-23-2022