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CRYSTALLIZATION

Minerals from colloidal assembly

Nature Materials volume 19, pages 375–376 (2020)Cite this article

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Magnetite crystals form by the aggregation and subsequent merger of crystalline precursors, which can be interpreted in terms of colloidal assembly.

The classical view of crystallization is one of simple building blocks (ions, atoms or molecules) that attach to crystal surfaces in a manner that leads to two-dimensional layered growth. This general mode of assembly has given rise to many theories of nucleation and growth that have served as a foundation for our understanding of crystallization for centuries. Recently, a number of studies have shown that crystallization can also occur through ‘non-classical’ pathways involving growth units (or precursors) more complex than a monomer, such as oligomers, liquid droplets, amorphous nanoparticles and small crystallites1. Such complexity also extends to nucleation, where an increasing list of examples show two-step processes involving the initial assembly of monomers into dense liquid droplets or clusters that serve as sites for nucleation2. Writing in Nature Materials, Sommerdijk and colleagues3 show that magnetite (Fe3O4) crystallization occurs by a mechanism of particle attachment involving the aggregation of crystalline precursors that can be rationalized on the basis of colloidal theory. This model allows the prediction of crystal sizes and polydispersity from the solution conditions, paving the way for the design of crystalline materials with desired sizes and features.

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Fig. 1: Magnetite crystallization via the assembly of complex building blocks.

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  1. Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA

    Jeffrey D. Rimer

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  1. Jeffrey D. Rimer
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Correspondence to Jeffrey D. Rimer.

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Rimer, J.D. Minerals from colloidal assembly. Nat. Mater. 19, 375–376 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-020-0650-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-020-0650-7

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