atactic
Adjective
Meaning
lacking motor coordination; marked or caused by ataxia
Source: WordNetSynonyms
Antonyms
Examples
Both isotactic and syndiotactic polypropylene are crystalline, whereas atactic polypropylene, which can also be prepared with special Ziegler–Natta catalysts, is amorphous.
A polymer that lacks any regular arrangement in the position of its alkyl substituents (R) is called atactic.
If a special catalyst is used in its synthesis it is possible to obtain the syndiotactic version of this polymer, but most industrial polystyrene produced is atactic.
There are three types: isotactic (all substituents on the same side), atactic (random placement of substituents), and syndiotactic (alternating placement of substituents).
The result is that, whereas syndiotactic PS is a semicrystalline material, the more common atactic version cannot crystallize and forms a glass instead.
The two materials have very different properties because the irregular structure of the atactic version makes it impossible for the polymer chains to stack in a regular fashion.