Radiation-Induced Crystallization of Sucrose

Abstract

In the presence of gelatine, sucrose crystallizes after a relatively short time (minutes, hours) when exposed to the radiation of an x-ray tube with copper target, or of a medical microwave unit. The formation of sucrose spherulites, visible with the naked eye, was observed.

Unexpected effects in non crystalline materials exposed to X-ray radiation

“…reduce the enthalpy of a system, for Xrays there is little reported practical evidence. A single Nature manuscript dating to 1959 is the earliest evidence that we have been able to find [28]. These authors reported that radiation induced formation of sucrose crystals inside a raspberry flavoured Jelly-O matrix.…”

Negative X-ray expansion in cadmium cyanide

“…4,5 X-ray-induced effects are somewhat less well studied in conventional inorganic systems, despite being implicated in a number of interesting phenomena. Examples include decomposition, [6][7][8] conductivity enhancement, [9][10][11][12][13] colour changes, 14 spincrossover, 15 charge transfer, 16,17 cell-parameter changes, 18 crystallisation, 19 and amorphisation. 20,21 X-ray irradiation has been found to induce changes in the resistivity of magnetoresistive manganites (A 3+ 1−x B 2+…”

“…5,23 And X-ray exposure with Cu Kα over a period of six hours led to crystallisation of sucrose from amorphous mixtures in ' Jello'. 19 A relatively universal consequence of X-ray-matter interactions is volume expansion of the crystal lattice. In protein crystallography, where the effect has been studied particularly carefully, there is an almost linear dependence of the unit cell volume on the dose of X-ray irradiation.…”

“… 5,23 And X-ray exposure with Cu Kα over a period of six hours led to crystallisation of sucrose from amorphous mixtures in ‘Jello’. 19 …”

Negative X-ray expansion in cadmium cyanide

“…4,5 X-ray-induced effects are somewhat less well studied in conventional inorganic systems, despite being implicated in a number of interesting phenomena. Examples include decomposition, [6][7][8] conductivity enhancement, [9][10][11][12][13] colour changes, 14 spin-crossover, 15 charge transfer, 16,17 cell-parameter changes, 18 crystallisation, 19 and amorphisation. 20,21 X-ray irradiation has been found to induce changes in the resistivity of magnetoresistive manganites (A 1Àx 3+ B x 2+ MnO 3 ).…”