Step by step resolving the formation of dendritic crystal in solution: an observation against the classical model of one-by-one addition

3rd International Conference on New Material and Chemical Industry

材料科学;化学工业

Wang, Y.^1^2 ; Li, Y.^1 ; Liu, L.^2 ; Bai, H.^1 ; Zhao, S.^1 ; Liu, R.L.^1 ; Xu, L.^1

School of Medicine, Xi'An Peihua University, Xi'an

710125, China^1

Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Degradable Biomedical Materials, School of Chemical Engineering, Northwest University, Xi'an

710069, China^2

关键词: Building blockes;    Continuous crystallization;    Crystallization process;    Dendritic crystal;    Dendritic morphology;    Different stages;    Fundamental modes;    Growth mechanisms;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/479/1/012119/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1757-899X/479/1/012119

学科分类：材料科学（综合）

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

During crystallization, one-by-one addition of atomic species or nucleation-generated nanoparticles is widely considered to be the fundamental mode to construct advanced morphologies. However, due to a lack of approaches with high resolution and real-time tracing ability, the correctness of this conventional concept has never been verified in a complicated crystallization process, even including the simplest species - the formation of dendritic crystals. In this work, we successfully resolved the growth mechanism of dendritic KCl crystals in a thin water film by terminating the continuous crystallization at different stages. The results were quite against the conventional concept. For example, one-by-one aggregation of individual ions was unable to directly form a dendritic morphology, and nucleation-generated nanoparticles had been prearranged into dendritic configuration before they could attach one another. In summary, the crystallization was precisely self-controlled to follow several specific steps rather than the simple addition of building blocks.