Bruker
rayonix
Rigaku
STOE & Cie GmbH
Paul Boyle's Crystal Growing Guides
P.G. Jones: Crystal growing,
Chemistry in Britain (1981) 17, 222-225.
J. Hulliger: Chemistry and Crystal Growth,
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. (1994) 33, 143-162.
Angew. Chem. (1994) 106, 151-171.
B. Spingler, S. Schnidrig, T. Todorova, F. Wild: Some thoughts about the
single crystal growth of small molecules,
CrystEngComm (2012) 14,
751-757.
J.P. Metherall, R.C. Carroll, S.J. Coles, M.J. Hall, M.R. Probert:
Advanced crystallisation methods for small organic molecules,
Chem. Soc. Rev. (2023) 52, 1995-2010.
R.D. Sommer: How to grow crystals for X-ray crystallography,
Acta Cryst (2024) C80, 337-342.
A. Holden, P. Morrison: Crystals and Crystal Growing,
MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1982)
ISBN 0-262-58050-0 (pbk.), 13.95 US$
(Very basic introduction to the subject. Because of the nice price also
suitable as a gift for children of 14 years onwards.)
J.W. Mullin: Crystallization,
Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, Great Britain (1993)
ISBN 0-7506-1129-4, 85.00 £
(Good overview. Thermodynamics of the nucleation and crystal growth
processes. Industrial applications of crystallization.)
K.-Th. Wilke, J. Bohm: Kristallzüchtung,
Verlag Harri Deutsch, Thun; Frankfurt/Main (1988)
ISBN 3-87144-971-7, 220.00 DM
(Comprehensive standard work. Only available in German. Nearly all
techniques mentioned. List of compounds contains approximately 2000
substances.)
As stated in many introductory chemistry textbooks, crystallization should start, if the concentation of a solution is higher than the corresponding solubility product. In fact, crystallization is kinetically hindered. This leads to the metastable condition of supersaturation: The concentration is higher than the solubility product, but crystallization has not yet started. This condition of supersaturation is the optimal condition for crystal growing. In fact it is the only condition for crystal growing: If the concentration is higher, uncontrolled spontanous crystallization sets in; if the concentration is lower, already formed crystals will dissolve.
An often used process in the laboratory is therefore the cooling of the reaction mixture until the state of supersaturation is achieved. But as stated before, crystallization is kinetically hindered and will not start, even if you wait for month. What you need are crystal seeds. The generation of these crystal seeds (nucleation) is the most difficult part of the whole crystallization process.
You can try out one of the following techniques for nucleation:
1. Nucleation is in most cases an endothermic process. Evaporation of the
solvent at increased temperatures is therefore a better choice for
getting crystal seeds than just cooling down. If the first crystals are
visible, the growing of the crystals is thereafter controlled by lowering
the temperature (crystal growing is exothermic in most cases).
2. The solution is cooled down until (uncontrolled) spontanous crystallization
sets in. The solution is then warmed up until nearly all of the crystals
are dissolved again. The remaining crystals are allowed to grow by
controlled cooling.
N.B.: Unfortunally many chemist are proud of having crystals at all. They
don't have the courage to re-dissolve the crystals. They just bring the
results of the uncontrolled spontanous crystallization to the crystallographer.
The quality of these crystals is very poor and in many cases also the
results of the structure determination.
3. Ultrasound often helps to get crystal seeds. Ultrasound is used in cleaning baths, but can also be generated by scratching at the glass of the crystallization vessel.
4. Hetreogeneous nucleation. Nucleation can be affected considerably by the presence of mere traces of impurities in the system. Impurities may act as inhibitors or accelerators.
2. "Don't crystallize too concentrated."
Crystallization from too concentrated solutions often leads to glass, syrup or
other unpleasant results. A good example are sugars which are very soluble
in water. They therefore form high concentrations and nearly never
crystallize from water. Better choose a solvent (or mixture of solvents),
in which the solute is less soluble.
3. "Don't hurry."
If you need month or years for the synthesis of a compound, why should the
crystallization be finished in a few hours? You don't stop the synthesis after
the first dissapointing attempts, why do you stop crystallization so early.
4. "Don't forget about details."
You write an excellent, detailed laboratory notebook about your synthesis. You
mention boiling and melting points, concentrations, colours, reaction times
and so on. But you don't mention your crystallization conditions at all or
only with one sentence. The remark "Suitable crystals were obtained by slow
evaporation of the solvent" is to no help to the reader.
5. "Don't use glass vessels."
With evaporation the solvent creeps up the walls of a glass vessel, because
the hydroxyl-groups of the silicate glass make it hydrophilic. Nucleation
occurs therefore outside the solution. Much better are vessels made of
polypropylen or teflon. The solvent doesn't creep up these vessels.
You can also make glass vessels hydrophobic by silanation.
6. "Use acceptors."
Many substances are difficult to crystallize because the system don't
contain acceptors for hydrogen bonds. The Cambridge Structural Database
contains more than 350 substances crystallized as picrates.
In other cases triphenylphosphine oxide can be used alternatively
(M.C. Etter, P.W. Baures, J. Am. Chem. Soc. (1988) 110, 639-640).
2. Crystallographers like crystals provided within the solvent.
3. Crystallographers like crystals which are grown slowly. They are in most cases of better quality.
4. Crystallographers like solvents, which don't tend towards disorder.
5. Crystallographers like anions, which don't tend towards disorder.