Floppy crystals. Salts which contain water in their crystalline structure can become floppy and soft. Credit: UvA
When it concerns crystals, we tend to envision strong, stiff structures with distinct, repeating patterns, such as ice, salt, and quartz. New research study conducted by Noushine Shahidzadeh, a physicist from the University of Amsterdam Institute of Physics, exposes a various truth: crystals can likewise be pliable and soft, doing not have the identifiable facets that we generally associate with them.
The results of this research study were recently released in the journal Nature Communications.
Floppy crystals
Crystals are generically difficult solids and are normally determined by their well-defined geometrical shape that reflects the underlying extremely purchased molecular structure. In their paper, the physicists show that surprisingly, some salts which contain water in their crystalline structure (so-called hydrated salts) can act remarkably differently.
When these salts are gradually liquified through contact with humid air, they become soft, deformable, and lose their elements. This is in contrast to routine crystals, which keep their faceted shape and remain hard while liquifying. Therefore, the microcrystals that were studied at the same time are crystalline in the bulk of the product but reveal liquid-like molecular movement at their surface areas.
Reference: “Softness of hydrated salt crystals under deliquescence” by Rozeline Wijnhorst, Menno Demmenie, Etienne Jambon-Puillet, Freek Ariese, Daniel Bonn, and Noushine Shahidzadeh, 25 February 2023, Nature Communications.DOI: 10.1038/ s41467-023-36834-0.
The paper was chosen by the editors of that journal as one of the featured posts for the Editors Highlights webpage of current research in the section Materials science and chemistry. The Editors Highlights pages intend to display the 50 best papers just recently published in a location.