Improvements to the Practical Usability of the "Crystalline Sponge" Method for Organic Structure Determination

A microwell droplet approach provided high-quality samples in ≥90% yield of the "crystalline sponge", which was exhibited previously as a revolutionary organic structure determination method. The new protocol, from crystal growth to guest soaking, was conducted in 1-7 days (depending on the guest) and was robust toward user errors, marking improvements over existing protocols. Unit cell determination was used as a practical crystal screening metric. These advances improve the practicality of the crystalline sponge technique for characterizing unknown organic molecules.