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Molecular Assembly and Crystal Nucleation: How Molecular Dynamics Simulations Enhance Our Understanding

Dimitrios Toroz ,  Kevin J. Roberts ,  Robert B. Hammond 

University of Leeds (SPEME), Leeds LS2-9JT, United Kingdom

Abstract
Molecular dynamics simulations are employed to elucidate the structure, lifetime and relative stability of putative assemblies of the fundamental growth-units of crystals.  In the present study simulations carried out for the organic molecule para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA). PABA is an enantiotropic system which has two known polymorphic forms alpha stable above 13.8C° and beta stable below this transition temperature. Simulations were used to investigate the stability of clusters of solute molecules for PABA as a function of solution supersaturation and temperature. Of particular interest is the stability of carboxylic acid dimers, both singularly and when assembled into larger clusters, as these dimers are manifested in the solid-state packing of the alpha polymorph alone. Elucidating the energy landscape of solute clusters in supersaturated solutions is the key to understand how particular polymorphs are selected via solution crystallisation according to factors such as solvent choice, de-supersaturation profile and temperature.

The lifetime and stability of solute clusters was investigated with the objective of estimating the critical cluster-size, as a function of index of supersaturation, in a solvent environment based on the probability for cluster dissolution. Particularly interesting is the solvent effects of the molecular self-assembly of solute molecules in solution. MD simulations enable free-energy changes associated with the solvation of both monomers and dimers of PABA to be calculated, at temperatures above and below the transition temperature, by which a link to the relative thermodynamic stability of the polymorphs in the bulk might be made.

 

Key Words: Nucleation, Homogeneous, Heterogeneous, Crystal, Polymorphism, Molecular Assembly, Solution Structure, Molecular Dynamics, Molecular Clusters, Atomistic Potentials, Charge Models, Para-aminobenzoic Acid.

 

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Related papers

Presentation: Oral at 17th International Conference on Crystal Growth and Epitaxy - ICCGE-17, General Session 1, by Dimitrios Toroz
See On-line Journal of 17th International Conference on Crystal Growth and Epitaxy - ICCGE-17

Submitted: 2013-04-26 11:54
Revised:   2013-04-26 14:50