Functional Crystals for (Nano-)Technological and Biomedical Applications
A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Molecular Structure".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2024) | Viewed by 3000
Special Issue Editors
Interests: HR-TEM; biomaterials; protein crystal growth; biophysics; biomedical
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: crystallography; MOFs; hybrid materials; crystal prediction; synthesis; nanocomposites
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The necessity of growing crystals has led to a tremendous progress in different research topics leading to useful (industrial) applications in divergent fields. For instance, the structural determination of functional compounds, inorganic molecules and biological macromolecules requires the ordered condensation of the respective molecules (liquid or solid material) in a definite pattern with surface regularity reflects an internal symmetry, i.e., crystal growth. This is because many structural characterization methodologies can then be used to reveal their accurate 3D structure, such as X-ray, synchrotron, neutron, and XFEL crystallography, as well as NMR. On the other hand, crystallization, itself is used as a tool in many pharmaceutical, technological, and biomedical applications. As an example, crystallization is used as a tool for purification of a target molecule from its surrounding. Even more, crystallization is used to separate molecules of a specific handedness (chirality) from its opposite counterpart (left and right). In addition, the growth of nanocrystals or nanoparticles attracted a lot of interest for their potential applications in (bio)nanotechnology and targeted therapeutical delivery applications.
Therefore, in this special issue focused on the scope of crystals with potential applications in (nano)technology and biomedicine, we are accepting submissions that present tools for facilitating nucleation, the early onset of crystallization, and their routes, given the recent reveals of the nucleation mechanism that has gone beyond the classical nucleation theory. Furthermore, submissions addressing new crystallization routes and methods to obtain high-quality crystals or facilitating control over crystal size, habit, or handedness are included within the scope of this issue. Moreover, manuscripts describing the structural determination and applications of functional crystals are directly related to this special issue.
We welcome manuscripts in the form of full papers, communications, minireviews and reviews.
Dr. Alaa Adawy
Prof. Dr. Santiago Garcia-Granda
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- crystal structure
- nucleation
- crystallization methodologies
- crystal growth
- biological macromolecules
- biomaterials
- MOFs
- hybrid molecules
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