A conceptual change in crystallisation mechanisms of oxide materials from solutions in closed systems.

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Date
2020-10-27
Authors
Padmanabhan, Sibu C.
Collins, Timothy W.
Pillai, Suresh C.
McCormack, Declan E.
Kelly, John M.
Holmes, Justin D.
Morris, Michael A.
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Publisher
Springer Nature
Published Version
10.1038/s41598-020-75241-z
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Abstract
Atomic and molecular level interactions in solutions dictate the structural and functional attributes of crystals. These features clearly dictate the properties of materials and their applicability in technologies. However, the microscopic phenomena of particle formation—nucleation and growth—in real systems are still not fully understood. Specifically, crystallisation occurring in closed systems are largely unproven. Combining coherent experimental data, we here demonstrate a fundamental nucleation-growth mechanism that occurs in a model zinc oxide system when particles are formed under continuous, rapid heating under closed reaction conditions. Defying all previous reports, we show that the nucleation commences only when the heating is terminated. A prenucleation clusters pathway is observed for nucleation, followed by crystallite assembly-growth. We show that the nucleation-growth processes result from temporal and dynamic activity of constituent ions and gaseous molecules in solution and by the irreversible expulsion of the dissolved gaseous molecules. We suggest that this nucleation process is generic to most closed systems that go through precipitation, and, therefore, important for the crystallisation of a variety of metal oxides, composites and minerals. We anticipate that the work may be a platform for future experimental and theoretical investigation promoting deeper understanding of the nucleation-growth phenomena of a variety of practical systems.
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Keywords
Calcium carbonates , Biomineralization , Nacre , Reaction kinetics and dynamics
Citation
Padmanabhan, S. C., Collins, T. W., Pillai, S. C., McCormack, D. E., Kelly, J. M., Holmes, J. D. and Morris, M. A. (2020) 'A conceptual change in crystallisation mechanisms of oxide materials from solutions in closed systems', Scientific Reports, 10(1), 18414 (10 pp). doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-75241-z
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https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75241-z
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/10468/10771
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Chemistry - Journal Articles
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© The Author(s) 2020. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.