Direct observation of grain rotations during coarsening of a semisolid Al-Cu alloy.

Sintering is a key technology for processing ceramic and metallic powders into solid objects of complex geometry, particularly in the burgeoning field of energy storage materials. The modeling of sintering processes, however, has not kept pace with applications. Conventional models, which assume ideal arrangements of constituent powders while ignoring their underlying crystallinity, achieve at best a qualitative description of the rearrangement, densification, and coarsening of powder compacts during thermal processing. Treating a semisolid Al-Cu alloy as a model system for late-stage sintering-during which densification plays a subordinate role to coarsening-we have used 3D X-ray diffraction microscopy to track the changes in sample microstructure induced by annealing. The results establish the occurrence of significant particle rotations, driven in part by the dependence of boundary energy on crystallographic misorientation. Evidently, a comprehensive model for sintering must incorporate crystallographic parameters into the thermodynamic driving forces governing microstructural evolution.

Heterogeneous grain-scale response in ferroic polycrystals under electric field.

Understanding coupling of ferroic properties over grain boundaries and within clusters of grains in polycrystalline materials is hindered due to a lack of direct experimental methods to probe the behaviour of individual grains in the bulk of a material. Here, a variant of three-dimensional X-ray diffraction (3D-XRD) is used to resolve the non-180° ferroelectric domain switching strain components of 191 grains from the bulk of a polycrystalline electro-ceramic that has undergone an electric-field-induced phase transformation. It is found that while the orientation of a given grain relative to the field direction has a significant influence on the phase and resultant domain texture, there are large deviations from the average behaviour at the grain scale. It is suggested that these deviations arise from local strain and electric field neighbourhoods being highly heterogeneous within the bulk polycrystal. Additionally, the minimisation of electrostatic potentials at the grain boundaries due to interacting ferroelectric domains must also be considered. It is found that the local grain-scale deviations average out over approximately 10-20 grains. These results provide unique insight into the grain-scale interactions of ferroic materials and will be of value for future efforts to comprehensively model these and related materials at that length-scale.

Ammonium 1-hydroxy-2-(2-pyridinio)ethane-1,1-diyldiphosphonate dihydrate and potassium 1-hydroxy-2-(2-pyridinio)ethane-1,1-diyldiphosphonate dihydrate.

The crystal structures of the title compounds, ammonium risedronate dihydrate, NH4+.C7H10NO7P2-.2H2O, (I), and potassium risedronate dihydrate, K+.C7H10NO7P2-.2H2O, (II), have been determined from single-crystal X-ray data collected at 120 K. Compound (I) forms a three-dimensional hydrogen-bonded network which connects the ammonium and risedronate ions and the water molecules. In compound (II), the K+ ions are seven-coordinated in a capped distorted trigonal prism. The coordination polyhedra form chains by corner-sharing, and these chains are connected by phosphonate groups into layers in the ac plane. The layers are stacked and connected by hydrogen bonds in the b direction. The risedronate conformation is determined by intramolecular interactions fine-tuned by crystal packing effects. All H-atom donors in both structures are involved in hydrogen bonding, with D...A distances between 2.510 (2) and 3.009 (2) A.

Relations between 77Se NMR chemical shifts of (phenylseleno)-benzenes and their molecular structures derived from nine X-ray crystal structures.

An extensive library of 77Se chemical shifts have been generated from the NMR measurements on substituted (phenylseleno)benzenes, including 33 new compounds. The variation in chemical shifts cover 265 ppm ranging from 446 to 181 ppm. Crystal structures have been determined for nine selected representatives of the substituted (phenylseleno)-benzenes. The analysis of the crystal structures supported that through-space interactions between selenium and the ortho-substituent observed in the crystal structures also are likely to be present in solution. The variation in the 77Se NMR chemical shifts can be rationalised from the intramolecular interactions with the substituent in the ortho-position. Furthermore it appears that these ortho-effects are roughly additive, and that it is the actual interactions and not the resulting conformational constraints that are responsible for the variations in the 77Se NMR chemical shifts.

Diastereomeric salts of lactic acid and 1-phenylethylamine, their structures and relative stabilities.

Crystal structures have been determined for the two diastereomeric salts formed between S-lactic acid (S-LA) and 1-phenylethylamine (PEA). The relative stabilities of the salts have been investigated by differential scanning calorimetry and solubility measurements in acetonitrile. The less soluble salt obtained from water, (R-PEA)(S-LA), is the less dense. It belongs to the orthorhombic space group P2(1)2(1)2(1), Z = 4. The more soluble salt, (S-PEA)(S-LA) x H(2)O, crystallized from ethanol is monoclinic, space group P2(1), Z = 2. The crystal structure showed that the water molecule is well integrated into the hydrogen-bond network in the more soluble salt, which explains the fruitless attempts made to obtain the corresponding unhydrated salt. The lactate ion adopts different conformations in the two salts. The relative energies were investigated by Hartree-Fock calculations, showing that the lactate ion is in a conformation with higher energy in the more soluble salt. The difference in solubility between the two salts can be attributed to an interplay of enthalpy and entropy effects.