Freezing the Nonclassical Crystal Growth of a Coordination Polymer Using Controlled Dynamic Gradients

A methodology that can be efficiently used to synthesize, isolate, and study out-of-equilibrium crystal structures employing controlled and diffusion-limited microfluidic environments is demonstrated. Unlike studies conducted with conventional mixing procedures in a flask, it is proven experimentally and with numerical simulations that microfluidic technologies can undoubtedly fine-tune reaction times and reagents concentration profiles; factors that enable out-of-equilibrium crystal forms to be obtained.