Polymorphism is the ability of a solid material to exist in more than one phase or crystal structure. Polymorphism may occur in metals, alloys, ceramics, minerals, polymers, and pharmaceutical substances. Unresolved are the conditions for preferential nucleation during polymorphic transformations in which structural relationships or special crystallographic orientation relationships (OR's) form between the nucleus and surrounding matrix grains. We measured in-situ and simultaneously the nucleation rates of grains that have zero, one, two, three and four special OR's with the surrounding parent grains. These experiments show a trend in which the activation energy for nucleation becomes smaller - and therefore nucleation more probable - with increasing number of special OR's. These insights contribute to steering the processing of polymorphic materials with tailored properties, since preferential nucleation affects which crystal structure forms, the average grain size and texture of the material, and thereby - to a large extent - the final properties of the material.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep30860 | DOI Listing |
Langmuir
January 2025
Research Center for Water Resources and Interface Science, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
The mechanism of the emulsion polymerization of styrene to polystyrene nanoparticles (PSNPs) remains a subject of debate. Herein, a series of reaction parameters with different surfactant concentrations, monomer contents, temperatures, and equilibration times were investigated to understand the formation mechanism of PSNPs, which demonstrate a correlation between the properties of PSNPs and the mesostructure of the premix. Cooling the model systems with self-emulsifying nanodroplets (SENDs) in the early reaction stages resulted in the hollow polystyrene spheres (H-PSSs), ruptured PSNPs, and dandelion-like PSNPs, further indicating that the oil nanodroplets are the key sites for the formation of PSNPs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNano Lett
January 2025
Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261, United States.
The development of accurate methods for determining how alloy surfaces spontaneously restructure under reactive and corrosive environments is a key, long-standing, grand challenge in materials science. Using machine learning-accelerated density functional theory and rare-event methods, in conjunction with environmental transmission electron microscopy (ETEM), we examine the interplay between surface reconstructions and preferential segregation tendencies of CuNi(100) surfaces under oxidation conditions. Our modeling approach predicts that oxygen-induced Ni segregation in CuNi alloys favors Cu(100)-O c(2 × 2) reconstruction and destabilizes the Cu(100)-O (2√2 × √2)45° missing row reconstruction (MRR).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLangmuir
January 2025
State Key Laboratory of Water Resources Engineering and Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China.
Mineral precipitation is ubiquitous in natural and engineered environments, such as carbon mineralization, contaminant remediation, and oil recovery in unconventional reservoirs. The precipitation process continuously alters the medium permeability, thereby influencing fluid transport and subsequent reaction kinetics. The diversity of preferential precipitation zones controls flow and transport efficiency as well as the capacity of mineral sequestration and immobilization.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
January 2025
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Western University, London, ON N6A 5B9, Canada.
Induced earthquakes are manifestations of highly heterogeneous distributions of effective stress changes imparted by anthropogenic activities such as hydraulic fracturing and wastewater injection. It is critical to disentangle the mechanisms behind these earthquakes to better assess seismic risk. Here, a clustering methodology is applied to a catalog of 21,536 induced earthquakes detected during a 36-d hydraulic stimulation program in Western Canada.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFACS Nano
December 2024
Centre for Advanced Optoelectronic Functional Materials Research and Key Laboratory of UV-Emitting Materials and Technology, Northeast Normal University, Ministry of Education, Changchun 130024, China.
Bilayer transition metal chalcogenides (TMDs) have gradually attracted a great deal of attention due to the higher density of states and carrier mobility than monolayer TMDs. Controlling the uniformity of the layer number is very crucial because it will intensively influence the physical properties. However, it is difficult to synthesize equal-bilayer (EB) TMDs with two identical layers via a normal layer-by-layer strategy.
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