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Controlling the Morphology of Organic Crystals with Filamentous Bacteriophages
Whirang Cho1, Xiaomeng Liu2, James Forrest2
1†Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Center for Molecular and Engineering Thermodynamics, University of Delaware, 150 Academy Street, Newark, Delaware 19716, United States.
Abstract:
The preparation of thiamethoxam (TMX) organic crystals with high morphological uniformity was achieved by controlled aggregation-driven crystallization of primitive TMX crystals and phage using the filamentous M13 bacteriophage. The development of a regular, micrometer-sized, tetragonal-bipyramidal crystal structure was dependent on the amount of phage present. The phage appears to affect the supersaturation driving force for crystallization. The phage adsorption isotherm to TMX was well-fitted by the Satake-Yang model, which suggests a cooperative binding between neighboring phages as well as a binding of phage with the TMX crystal surface. This study shows the potential of phage additives to control the morphology and morphological uniformity of organic crystals.
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