Mesocrystals: Inorganic Superstructures Made by Highly Parallel Crystallization and Controlled Alignment

Abstract

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Oriented Attachment and Nonclassical Formation in Iron Oxides

“…Within the complexes, primary particles can rearrange via Brownian motion. If crystallographic registry is achieved, the result is a structural intermediate (III; previously referred to as a mesocrystal [30][31][32][33][34]) within which no direct particle-particle contacts have formed [37]. The space separating the primary crystallites is hypothesized to be filled with solvent and other dissolved species.…”

Hierarchically Nanostructured Biological Materials

“…A mesocrystal is an abbreviation for a mesoscopically structured crystal which is a superstructure of nanocrystals with mutual orientation [80,81] (Figure 2.7). Such a mesocrystalline arrangement [82] indeed improves the mechanical performance in a number of biominerals where mechanical performance is important, such as nacre [53,83], sea urchin spines [78], and corals [84,85].…”

“…Mineral bridges are also present, as in the case of nacre aragonite tablets [82,92,221]. This helps in achieving perfect crystallographic orientation in the 3D array of calcite nanoparticles [80]. The co-orientation of nanocrystals could also occur via their rotation and co-alignment in the viscoelastic organic environment [222].…”

Dissolution Enhancement by Bio-Inspired Mesocrystals: The Study of Racemic (R,S)-(±)-Sodium Ibuprofen Dihydrate

“…Although the productions and characterizations of mesocrystals have already been demonstrated on many inorganic compounds (24)(25)(26), studies on the formation of mesocrystals of organic molecules and clear demonstrations on the end use of them are rare (23,27,29,30). Therefore, the aim of this paper is to promote the concept of making API mesocrystals according to the scheme in Fig.…”

“…After all, all of these methods are focusing on the manipulation of the intermolecular interactions from the angstrom level to the selfassembled, long-range order of API molecules at the nanometer length scale in the solid state. And yet, none of this method has addressed on the materials synthesis and spatial control over "all" length scales (22,23), extending from the angstrom level all the way up to the micron level by selfassembly as vividly illustrated by the mesocrystal formation mechanism in bio-inspired mineralization (24)(25)(26). The working principle of bio-inspired mineralization relies heavily on the self-organization of the pre-formed and polymorphspecific primary particles to an ordered superstructure by an oriented attachment which may then be fused into a single crystal (24) under the guidance of the increasing Hamaker constant (27,28) (Fig.…”