Crystallization is vital to many processes occurring in nature and in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and food industries. Notably, crystallization is an attractive isolation step for manufacturing because this single process combines both particle formation and purification. Almost all of the products based on fine chemicals, such as dyes, explosives, and photographic materials, require crystallization in their manufacture, and more than 90% of all pharmaceutical products contain bioactive drug substances and excipients in the crystalline solid state. Hence control over the crystallization process allows manufacturers to obtain products with desired and reproducible properties. We judge the quality of a crystalline product based on four main properties: size, purity, morphology, and crystal structure. The pharmaceutical industry in particular requires production of the desired crystal form (polymorph) to assure the bioavailability and stability of the drug substance. In solution crystallization, nucleation plays a decisive role in determining the crystal structure and size distribution. Therefore, understanding the fundamentals of nucleation is crucial to achieve control over these properties. Because of its analytical simplicity, researchers have widely applied classical nucleation theory to solution crystallization. However, a number of differences between theoretical predictions and experimental results suggest that nucleation of solids from solution does not proceed via the classical pathway but follows more complex routes. In this Account, we discuss the shortcomings of classical nucleation theory and review studies contributing to the development of the modern two-step model. In the two-step model that was initially proposed for protein crystallization, a sufficient-sized cluster of solute molecules forms first, followed by reorganization of that cluster into an ordered structure. In recent experimental and theoretical studies, we and other researchers have demonstrated the applicability of the two-step mechanism to both macromolecules and small organic molecules, suggesting that this mechanism may underlie most crystallization processes from solutions. Because we have observed an increase in the organization time of appropriate lattice structures with greater molecular complexity, we propose that organization is the rate-determining step. Further development of a clearer picture of nucleation may help determine the optimum conditions necessary for the effective organization within the clusters. In addition, greater understanding of these processes may lead to the design of auxiliaries that can increase the rate of nucleation and avoid the formation of undesired solid forms, allowing researchers to obtain the final product in a timely and reproducible manner.

Pharmaceutical manufacturing typically uses batch processing at multiple locations. Disadvantages of this approach include long production times and the potential for supply chain disruptions. As a preliminary demonstration of an alternative approach, we report here the continuous-flow synthesis and formulation of active pharmaceutical ingredients in a compact, reconfigurable manufacturing platform. Continuous end-to-end synthesis in the refrigerator-sized [1.0 meter (width) × 0.7 meter (length) × 1.8 meter (height)] system produces sufficient quantities per day to supply hundreds to thousands of oral or topical liquid doses of diphenhydramine hydrochloride, lidocaine hydrochloride, diazepam, and fluoxetine hydrochloride that meet U.S. Pharmacopeia standards. Underlying this flexible plug-and-play approach are substantial enabling advances in continuous-flow synthesis, complex multistep sequence telescoping, reaction engineering equipment, and real-time formulation.

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Two types of radially symmetric three-dimensional nonlinear photonic crystals with the cylindrical structure and the egglike structure are proposed, from which the conical and the spherical quadratic harmonic waves can be produced, respectively, by three-dimensional quasi-phase matching. First, the cylindrical structures with periodic and aperiodic modulations of the nonlinear coefficient are both studied, showing their significant advantages compared to the corresponding two-dimensional structures. The dependencies of the transverse and the longitudinal phase-matching periods on harmonic propagating directions are also calculated and analyzed. Then, the egglike structure is designed by programming and the distribution of reciprocal vectors is presented, indicating its ability to generate the spherical harmonic as a point light source. The investigation of the intensity distribution on the spherical wavefront is also performed, showing its strong dependence on the harmonic polarization and the quadratic nonlinear coefficients.