ERC Consolidator Grant · 2018
CRYSTAL CLEAR: determining the impact of charge on crystal nucleation
All of the crystals that form in water on Earth are formed through reaction between oppositely charged ions. In these crystals, the ions are present in an ideal, charge-balanced ionic ratio. In contrast, the natural solutions in which they form, contain widely diverging ionic ratios. When crystals nucleate from natural solutions, they will be charged, and charge has a massive impact on the behaviour of small new crystals. Most nucleation experiments have been conducted in solutions with charge-balanced ionic ratios. This leads to uncharged crystal formation, which can be described with nucleation theories based on uncharged gas condensation into droplets. My pilot data show that this does…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.