Crystalline arrangements disordered

Wide-angle X-ray scattering techniques can provide direct information on key features such as crystallinity, preferred orientation, phase identification and compositional analysis.. zfs jjoj-g detailed analysis can yield details of local chain conformations and packing arrangements in both crystalline and disordered polymers. ... 

When an X-ray beam falls on alums iwo processes may occur. The beam may be scaltcrcd or the beam may be absorbed with an ejection of electrons from an atom. In the case of a crystalline material the scattering of X-rays is used to determine the structure of the solid phase and the chemist applies this method to the proof of the structure of new compounds very often. But even when a regular crystalline arrangement does not exist, as in liquids or amorphous solids, scattering patterns are produced. I.ike in the crystalline solid phase the scattering of X-rays on disordered systems can be used to determine the probability of distribution of atoms in the environment of any reference atom, or in other words the frequency with which interatomic distances occur. 

In the presence of water, surfactants and lipids give rise to a variety of phases referred to as lyotropic phases or mesophases.i The most important of these phases are the lamellar, hexagonal, cubic micellar, and cubic bicontinuous phases denoted by L, H and V, and Q, respectively (see Figure 1.11 in Chapter 1). The subscripts 1 or 2 attached to these phase symbols indicate that the phase is direct (water continuous) or inverse (discontinuous water domains). Many other lyotropic phases have been identified that differ from the main ones by the state of the alkyl chain (crystalline or disordered) and of the head group arrangement (ordered or disordered). In the particular case of the lamellar phase, additional variations come from the possible different orientations adopted by the alkyl chains with respect to the plane of the lamellae (angle of tilt of the chain) and also from the state of the surface of the lamellae that can be planar or rippled. Numerous detailed descriptions have been given for the equilibrium state of the various phases that surfactants and lipids can form in the presence of water. 

To melt ice we have to put heat into the system. This increases the system entropy via eqn. (5.20). Physically, entropy represents disorder and eqn. (5.20) tells us that water is more disordered than ice. We would expect this anyway because the atoms in a liquid are arranged much more chaotically than they are in a crystalline solid. When water freezes, of course, heat leaves the system and the entropy decreases. 

This condition means that for f < 0.63 the disordered arrangement of molecules is thermodynamically unstable and the system is spontaneously reorganized into an ordered liquid crystalline phase of a nematic type (Flory called this state crystalline ). This result has been obtained only as a consequence of limited chain flexibility without taking into account intermolecular interactions. 

From a mechanical point of view the polymer may be regarded as a composite consisting of an alternative stiff (crystalline) and soft-compliant (disordered) elements. Given the geometrical arrangement of these two alternating phases and the hardness value of both of them, the arising question is to predict the hardness value of the material. On the other hand, it is known that density is a crystallinity parameter... 

FIGURE 5.17 (Left) Quartz is a crystalline form of silica, Si02, with the atoms in an orderly network represented here in two dimensions. (Right) When molten silica solidifies in an amorphous arrangement, it becomes glass. Now the atoms form a disorderly network. 

Many polymers show partial crystallinity. This is apparent from the study of X-ray diffraction patterns, which for polymers generally show both the sharp features associated with crystalline regions as well as less well-defined features which are characteristic of disordered substances with liquid-like arrangements of molecules. The co-existence of crystalline and amorphous regions is typical of the behaviour of crystalline polymers. 

An amorphous bulk polymer contains chains that are arranged in less than a well-ordered, crystalline manner. Physically, amorphous polymers exhibit a Tg but not a T, and do not give a clear x-ray diffraction pattern. Amorphous polymer chains have been likened to spaghetti strands in a pot of spaghetti, but the true extent of disorder that results in an amorphous polymer is still not fully understood. 

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