Jack Frost Crystals

1^st Prize

Contestant: Marianna Dini

Description:The picture submitted showcases a vial after a solubility experiment, in which a known amount of griseofulvin in acetonitrile solution was left to evaporate at room temperature. Upon solvent evaporation, the griseofulvin crystallised in a shape that resembles Jack Frost, the famous personification of frost, ice, snow, winter, and freezing cold. He is held responsible for frosty weather, and leaving fern-like patterns on cold windows in winter… Just as we can see in the image submitted.

Cave in the Crystal

2^nd Prize

Contestant: Josia Tonn

Description: These crystals are a scandium fluoride salt and have been produced from antisolvent crystallization. To achieve crystal growth, specific operational parameters were necessary. In this case the conditions for crystal growth have been a little too good, so that the edges grew faster than the inside. The phenomenon is called hopper crystal. The rare earth scandium is incorporated in a (NH4)3ScF6 structure and is recovered from hydrometallurgical waste stream of aluminium production.

The Key to the Crystalline World

3^rd Prize

Contestant: Xin Su

Description: These are the crystals of Perylene, which look like a key. We call it 'The key to the crystalline world'. It grows via sublimation crystallization method, and it is the polycrystal not a single crystal.

Pride Crystals

1^st Prize

Entry: #7

Contestant: Krishna Hari

Affiliation: University of Limerick

Object Imaged: L-alanine and trans-4-hydroxy proline crystals

Conditions: Slow evapouration

Image taken with: Phone camera

Description: Like humans, crystals come in different shapes, styles and are unique. The background of the picture hints at the birefringent properties of these crystals and coincidentally is the pride LGBTQ+ flag. The rainbow colours highlight the diversity of crystals, and of people.

Spherulites in technicolours

2^nd shared Prize

Entry: #4 (2nd Prize)

Contestant: Paolo Lucaioli

Affiliation: Thermo Fisher Scientific Cork (Ireland)

Object Imaged: Pharmaceutical Active Ingredient (no name available for confidentiality reasons)

Conditions: Confidential

Image taken with: Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) with Secondary Electron (SE) detector. The original image was then elaborated with Photoshop.

Description: It is well known that crystallisation is often regarded as more of an art than a science. If this "questionable" definition might be justified by the difficulties encountered during the development of some crystallisation processes, it is indeed correct to say that crystals can be considered real artworks. For this reason, I decided to present this artistic interpretation of an extremely eye-catching image acquired with a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), inspired by Andy Warhol's series of technicolour silkscreens titled "Flowers". The original image was taken during a wide physical properties characterisation of an active ingredient that encountered issues during the formulation stage.

The crystalline particle shows a rose-like morphology known as "spherulite". This habit is often found in nature and is represented by radial distribution of crystals (in this case plate-like primary particles) generating a complex structure, rich in pores and cavities. The relative dimensions of the spherulites strongly affect many physical properties, such as specific surface area, bulk density, compactibility, etc. Variation of these properties translate to downstream effects that can impact both the manufacturing process (e.g. powder transfer, filtration, tableting, etc.) and the performance of the API (e.g. stability, dissolution, bioavailability, etc.).

Colour of Life

2^nd shared Prize

Entry: #9

Contestant: Lihong Jia

Affiliation: Tianjin University

Object Imaged: Aspirin

Conditions: The saturated solution of aspirin in isopropanol was evaporated for one week at room temperature.

Image taken with: Stereomicroscope