This essay is about the crystallization of proteins. Since the first published observation of crystallizing proteins about 160 years ago, protein crystal growth has developed into an extensive research field with many applications, for instance in the pharmaceutical industry. In this report, an overview of the unique physical-chemical characteristics of protein molecules, their properties in so...

The effects of the incorporation of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNT) with a diameter range of 10-30 nm on the shear-induced crystallization behavior of poly(butylene terephthalate) (PBT) were investigated under myriad shearing and loading conditions employing principally the small-amplitude oscillatory shear flow. Upon shearing, the presence of MWNTs leads to the crystallization of the PBT n...

Isothermal and non-isothermal crystallization behaviours of the blends of long chain branched polypropylene (LCB PP) and poly(ethylene-co-octene) (PEOc) with different weight ratios were studied under quiescent and shear flow using polarized optical microscopy (POM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and rheological measurements. Experimental results showed that the crystallization of th...

Direct tabletting technique is the modern and the most efficient process used in tablet manufacturing which has been successfully used for various drugs. But the process strongly depends upon the quality of the crystals used. For improvement of direct compression properties of different poorly soluble drugs Kawashima and their coworkers developed the spherical crystallization technique in 1986,...

Hematin crystallization is the primary mechanism of heme detoxification in malaria parasites and the target of the quinoline class of antimalarials. Despite numerous studies of malaria pathophysiology, fundamental questions regarding hematin growth and inhibition remain. Among them are the identity of the crystallization medium in vivo, aqueous or organic; the mechanism of crystallization, clas...

Viscosity has been determined during isothermal crystallization of an andesite from Tungurahua volcano (Ecuador). Viscosity was continuously recorded using the concentric cylinder method and employing a Pt-sheathed alumina spindle at 1 bar and from 1400°C to subliquidus temperatures to track rheological changes during crystallization. The disposable spindle was not extracted from the sample but...

Crystallization-driven self-assembly of polyethylene-b-poly(tert-butylacrylate) (PE-b-PtBA) block copolymers (BCPs) in N,N-dimethyl formamide (DMF) was studied. It is found that all three PE-b-PtBA BCPs used in this work can self-assemble into one-dimensional crystalline cylindrical micelles. When the BCP solution is cooled to crystallization temperature (Tc) from 130 °C, the seed micelles may ...

Protein crystals usually grow at a preferable temperature which is however not known for a new protein. This paper reports a new approach for determination of favorable crystallization temperature, which can be adopted to facilitate the crystallization screening process. By taking advantage of the correlation between the temperature dependence of the second virial coefficient (B(22)) and the so...

Controlled self-organization of nanoparticles can lead to new materials. The colloidal crystallization of non-spherical nanocrystals is a reaction channel in many crystallization reactions. With additives, self-organization can be stopped at an intermediary step-a mesocrystal-in which the primary units can still be identified. Mesocrystals were observed for various systems as kinetically metast...

Spherical crystallization is a novel particle engineering/design technique developed by Kawashima et al, to overcome the problems associated with direct compression. Basically, it's single step process used for size enlargement of single, two or more, small dose or large dose drugs, in combination with or without diluent. The process of spherical crystallization involves simultaneous crystalliz...