Investigating liquid-like mineral phases in crowded media

更可持续和更有效的结晶过程无疑将改善我们社会和子孙后代的健康和繁荣。我们每天都使用结晶来生产药物，种植作物，制造食物，建造建筑物和创造技术设备。此外，了解结晶过程有助于预防与阿尔茨海默氏症、肾结石、动脉粥样硬化等疾病有关的生物结晶。在对溶液结晶的传统描述中，一个微小的晶体首先形成，然后通过堆积单个离子或分子而变大。然而，一个新兴的新概念表明，晶体在成为最终的固体晶体之前可能会经历一个类似液体的阶段。当我们能够控制类液相时，我们就可以在它完全凝固并变得不可改变之前改变它的性质。这为合成材料提供了一种全新的方法。最终产品可以具有明确的形状和尺寸以及出色的机械和催化性能。这个新的研究者奖项目将利用矿物的液体相。挑战在于，这种液体状的状态只存在于很短的时间内。这个项目采用了一个生物起源的过程称为大分子拥挤（MC），这是至关重要的，在编排许多复杂的生物事件。这种方法将使我们能够管理矿物的液态相，使其更加稳定和丰富，从而使我们能够对液态矿物进行全面的定量检测，以便我们最终能够利用有用的相。有了这个计划，我将能够解释液态在结晶过程中的作用，并最终将这些知识应用于制造新材料。由于该过程在化学上是非特异性的，可扩展的和可持续的，因此它可以更普遍地用作控制用于催化剂，生物医学成像以及电子和光学器件的更广泛功能材料的合成的工具。

More sustainable and efficient crystallisation processes will undoubtedly improve the health and prosperity of our society and future generations. We use crystallisation daily to produce medicines, cultivate crops, make food, construct buildings, and create technological devices. Furthermore, understanding the crystallisation process could help prevent biological crystallisations linked with illnesses such as Alzheimer's, kidney stones, atherosclerosis, and so on.In the traditional description of crystallisation in solution, a tiny crystal first forms and then gets larger by stacking up individual ions or molecules. However, an emerging new concept suggests that a crystal may go through a liquid-like phase before it becomes the final solid crystal. When we can control the liquid-like phase, we can alter its properties before it fully solidifies and becomes unchangeable. This offers an entirely new way to synthesise materials. The final product could then have well-defined shapes and sizes as well as outstanding mechanical and catalytic qualities.This new investigator award project will exploit the liquid-like phase of minerals. The challenge with this is that this liquid-like state exists only in minute quantities and for very short times. This project adopts a biologically originated process called macromolecular crowding (MC), which is critical in orchestrating many complicated biological events. This approach will enable us to manage the liquid-like phases of minerals to be much more stable and abundant, thus allowing us to carry out a full quantitative examination of the liquid-like mineral so that we can eventually utilise the useful phase. With this initiative, I will be able to explain the role of the liquid state in the crystallisation process and ultimately apply this knowledge to make new materials. Because the process is chemically non-specific, scalable, and sustainable, it can be used more universally as a tool to control the synthesis of a wider range of functional materials used for catalysts, biomedical imaging, and electronic and optical devices.