New Horizons of Nonclassical Crystallization

Abstract

Nonclassical crystallization (NCC) summarizes a number of crystallization pathways, which differ from the classical layer-by-layer growth of crystals involving atomic/molecular building units. Common to NCC is that the building units are larger and include nanoparticles, clusters, or liquid droplets, providing multiple handles for their control at each elementary step. Therefore, many different pathways toward the final single crystals are possible and can be influenced by appropriate experimental parameters or additives at each step of crystal growth. NCC allows for a plethora of crystallization strategies toward complex crystalline (hybrid) materials. In this perspective, we summarize the current state of the art with a focus on the new horizons of NCC with respect to mechanistic understanding, high-performance materials, and new applications. This gives a glimpse on what will be possible in the future using these crystallization approaches: Examples are new electrodes and storage materials, (photo)­catalysts, building materials, porous or crystalline materials with complex shape, structural hierarchy, and anisotropic single crystals.

Crystallization in Confinement

“…Significant efforts are therefore made to understand how crystals nucleate and grow in order to develop strategies to control fundamental properties such as size, shape, and polymorph, and to inhibit or promote crystallization as desired. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Given the challenges associated with this goal, text book descriptions of NMR, and X-ray and neutron diffraction. Finally, crystallization is a dynamic phenomenon, and is governed by the transport of material to the growing crystals.…”

Oriented attachment mechanism of triangular Ag nanoplates: a molecular dynamics study

“…1 In addition, there is a large body of literature indicating that non-classical mechanisms can also be operative in crystal growth (see, for example, ref. [2][3][4][5]. Among these, oriented attachment (OA) has received considerable attention.…”

Mesoscale Assembly of Bisteroidal Esters from Terephthalic Acid

“…Given that bisteroids are rigid and almost linear molecules, with a dimension approaching 40 Å, the oriented aggregation of these molecules in suitable solvent mixtures seems to be favoured, through alignment by physical forces, for example by van der Waals interactions [52]. Once such mesoscale assemblies have been stabilized, a mesocrystal can be formed, which is extended over much larger dimensions, in the range 10-100 µm, as observed by SEM.…”