A Review of Laser-Induced Crystallization from Solution

Abstract

Crystallization abounds in nature and industrial practice. A plethora of indispensable products ranging from agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals to battery materials are produced in crystalline form in industrial practice. Yet, our control over the crystallization process across scales, from molecular to macroscopic, is far from complete. This bottleneck not only hinders our ability to engineer the properties of crystalline products essential for maintaining our quality of life but also hampers progress toward a sustainable circular economy in resource recovery. In recent years, approaches leveraging light fields have emerged as promising alternatives to manipulate crystallization. In this review article, we classify laser-induced crystallization approaches where light-material interactions are utilized to influence crystallization phenomena according to proposed underlying mechanisms and experimental setups. We discuss nonphotochemical laser-induced nucleation, high-intensity laser-induced nucleation, laser trapping-induced crystallization, and indirect methods in detail. Throughout the review, we highlight connections among these separately evolving subfields to encourage the interdisciplinary exchange of ideas.

Design and Validation of a Droplet-based Microfluidic System To Study Non-Photochemical Laser-Induced Nucleation of Potassium Chloride Solutions

“…Similarly, the 0.22 and 0.45 μm filters effectively removed nanoimpurities from the unfiltered solution, thus resulting in lower nucleation probability. The obtained results in Figure provide supporting evidence for the nanoparticle/impurity heating mechanism …”

Strong Enhancement of Nucleation Efficiency of Aqueous Ethylenediamine Sulfate Solutions by Nonphotochemical Laser-Induced Nucleation: Investigations on the Role of Solid Impurities in the Mechanism

“…Influence of Doping EDS-Filtered Solutions on NPLIN Efficiency. The role of colloidal impurities in the NPLIN mechanism has already been pointed out, 10,18,20,23 but their chemical nature and how they interact with the laser light remain unclear. In the present case, Figure 3 and Table 3 support the hypothesis that the commercial EDS sample would present a non-negligible amount (0.14 mg/g of EDS) of insoluble iron materials, which favors the NPLIN effect.…”

“…This shows that the EDS NPLIN mechanism requires (or is strongly favored by) the presence of such particles in colloidal suspensions, as proposed by the "nanoparticle heating" (NpH) mechanism. 23 Nucleation would occur as a result of light absorption by the impurities in suspensions, causing local heating, solvent vaporization, and then crystallization. As already discussed by Alexander and Camp, 18 understanding how the presence of these solid materials impacts the organization of the solute in solution, what are the modalities of the light−particle interaction, and how they trigger nucleation upon irradiation is difficult because many parameters are involved and should be controlled.…”

“…Still, the interest in such data has been recognized. 23 Indeed, the characteristic intense light absorption properties of such SPR particles is an interesting feature to study the NPLIN process, especially by using nanosecond laser light, which exhibits high peak power and sufficiently long pulse duration to trigger several events such as cavitation, NP implosion, or mechanical shockwaves. 40 Laser irradiation of Au NPs (and more rarely Ag NPs) has been extensively used for biological applications because of the SPR absorption of Au NPs at ca.…”

“…3,5−7 However, as the number of NPLIN publications grew, more and more evidence highlighted that the mechanism of the phenomenon could be more complex, 8,19−22 and review articles discussing the various possible mechanisms in relation to this topic have been published recently. 18,23 Some authors reported that NPLIN could originate from cavitation upon irradiation, thus identifying the phenomenon as some kind of sonocrystallization. 19,24 More recently, Javid et al 25 have reported that the filtration of glycine supersaturated solutions before exposure to laser light suppresses the NPLIN phenomenon (i.e., the nucleation efficiency of filtered and irradiated samples is comparable to that of nonirradiated samples).…”