Single-crystal
to single-crystal polymorphic transformations in
molecular solids are relatively rare, with changes in crystal structure
more commonly leading to destruction of the parent crystal. However,
the structural basis for such transitions is of considerable interest
given the changes in material properties that can result. The antihistamine
desloratadine displays a two-step, reversible single-crystal to single-crystal
phase transition during heating/cooling cycles between three conformational
polymorphs: the low temperature form I, a polytypic intermediate form
II, and the high temperature form III. The two-step transition involves
a sequential flipping of the piperidine rings of desloratadine molecules
in the crystals, which induce reversible micrometer-scale contraction
on heating and expansion on cooling of the largest face of a desloratadine
single crystal. Distinct, slow-moving phase boundaries, originating
on the (001) face of the crystal, were observed sweeping through the
entire crystal in hot-stage microscopy, suggesting a single nucleation
event. Computational spectroscopy, using periodic DFT-D phonon calculations,
reproduces the experimental variable-temperatureTHz-Raman spectra
and rules out the possibility of the phase transformations occurring
via any classical soft mode. A combination of variable-temperature
powder X-ray diffraction, solid-state NMR, and computational spectroscopy
provides a detailed molecular description of the phase transitions,
indicating a first-order diffusionless process between I →
II and II → III, wherein both conformational changes and lattice
distortions occur simultaneously in the crystal lattice. The study
indicates that a nucleation and growth mechanism is compatible with
concerted movements producing a conformational change in organic molecular
crystals.