Crystalline polymer

{
  "id": "MLC-T-CHM-002759",
  "term": "Crystalline polymer",
  "field": "Chemistry",
  "definition": "A polymer showing crystallinity, meaning three-dimensional order on the atomic scale in at least part of its volume. Melt-crystallized polymers are almost always semicrystalline, with ordered lamellae embedded in amorphous material, because long entangled chains cannot fully rearrange into a lattice. The crystalline fraction is measured by X-ray diffraction or differential scanning calorimetry and reaches about 90 percent in the most crystalline polyethylene.",
  "subject": "Polymer",
  "see_also": [
    "crystallinity",
    "mesophase"
  ],
  "references": [
    "Purple Book, 1st ed., p. 74 (http://old.iupac.org/publications/books/author/metanomski.html)"
  ],
  "url": "https://mlchart.com/terminology/chemistry/crystalline-polymer/"
}