CrystEngComm Blog

A researcher in the UK has shed new light on which interactions are important in the packing of crystal structures.¹

Robin Taylor from the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) analysed the line-of-sight interactions between the most common elements found in organic crystal structures. He found that the probability of an interaction taking place boils down to the exposed surface area an atom presents. With 137,560 appropriate crystals available from the Cambridge Structural Database, and the inclusion of several statistical considerations, Taylor was able to keep potential sources of uncertainty to a minimum.

Interested? If so, read the full article at Chemistry World.

Interactions may be longer than the sum of Van der Waals radii yet still play a significant stabilising role

 The original article can be accessed below:

Which intermolecular interactions have a significant influence on crystal packing?
Robin Taylor
CrystEngComm, 2014, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C4CE00452C

Scientists in the US have devised a method for printing three dimensional models of crystals using a 3D printer, the original CIF file and freely available software that can be run on standard operating systems.

Crystallographers like to picture complex crystal structures in three dimensions. Many use software that allows them to visualise the structures in a virtual space, but a better option would a physical model that you could hold in your hand.

Interested? Read the full article at Chemistry World.

The original article can be read below:

How to Print a Crystal Structure Model in 3D
Teng-Hao Chen, Semin Lee, Amar H Flood and Ognjen Miljanic  
CrystEngComm, 2014, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C4CE00371C

Eye infection treatments that resist being blinked away could be formulated by cocrystallising an antibiotic with caffeine.

Cocrystallising sulfacetamide (left) with caffeine (right) makes it less soluble

Sulfacetamide (SACT) is often lost on blinking and in tears when applied as a treatment for conjunctivitis and other ocular ailments. This leads to the inconvenience and complications of applying larger and more frequent doses of SACT….’

Interested? Read the full article at Chemistry World.

Please click on the below title to access the original article.

Modulating the solubility of Sulfacetamide by means of cocrystals†
Ashwini Nangia, Rajesh Goud and Ronaq Ali Khan  
CrystEngComm, 2014, Accepted Manuscript
DOI: 10.1039/C4CE00103F, Paper