Post-breakage crystal regeneration: multiple breakage sites, growth kinetics, and effects on mass production
Author(s)
Etit, Deniz
Bade, Isha
Tan, Clement TT
Heng, Jerry YY
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Post-breakage crystal growth is obscure. Recently, form I paracetamol (PCM) crystals, broken to expose their internal cleavage plane (010), grew back into their original shapes through “regeneration.” This work reports on regeneration in crystals with multiple breakage sites, regeneration growth kinetics, and regeneration’s process optimization potential. Single PCM crystals with two breakage sites grew into their original shapes in ethanol, with a rate twice that of crystals with one breakage site. In a surface integration-limited regime, PCM regeneration in ethanol followed the kinetic equation G = (34.1 ms–1) exp (−38.2 kJmol–1/RT)(S – 1)1.80. With a higher pre-exponential factor and lower activation energy, regeneration is indicated to proceed significantly faster than regular growth across different temperatures and concentrations. A modified “two-crystal” setup enabled the comparison of mass growth rates between regenerating and unbroken crystals during PCM evaporative crystallization in acetone, evaporative crystallization in ethanol, and isothermal crystallization in ethanol. In these cases, regenerating crystals grew faster by 36 ± 8 wt %, 75 ± 19 wt %, and 94 ± 34 wt %, respectively. Projections to multi-crystal systems indicated that crystallization processing times could be lowered by up to 42%, 60%, and 65% for the respective cases. These findings offer improvements for crystallization process modeling and optimization.
Date Issued
2025-10-01
Date Acceptance
2025-08-25
Citation
Crystal Growth & Design, 2025, 25 (19), pp.8073-8080
ISSN
1528-7483
Publisher
American Chemical Society
Start Page
8073
End Page
8080
Journal / Book Title
Crystal Growth & Design
Volume
25
Issue
19
Copyright Statement
© 2025 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society. This publication is licensed under CC-BY 4.0 .
License URL
Subjects
Chemistry
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
CRYSTALLIZATION
Crystallography
Materials Science
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
PARTICLE-SIZE
Physical Sciences
Science & Technology
SIZE DISTRIBUTION
Technology
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2025-09-12