Molecular Simulation of Crystal Nucleation and Growth in Solution

Justin B. Haskins, Chemical Engineering, Vanderbilt University, 1255 Old Montezuma Rd., Henderson, TN 38349 and Jerome P. Delhommelle, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of South Carolina, 301 South Main Street, Columbia, SC 29208.

We report a computer simulation study of the nucleation free energy and the structural evolution of sub-cooled, Lennard-Jones particles crystallized from solution. Umbrella sampling was employed to induce the initial formation of the critical nucleus, and trials with different Lennard-Jones cross interaction parameters  were carried out to assess the effects on the nucleation free energy. The systems with larger  were found to have much less phase separation and a larger nucleation free energy than the systems with smaller . Coincidently, the systems with the smaller  were completely separated into two distinct liquid phases. Also, the pre-critical nuclei were found to be mainly body-centered cubic (bcc) ordered. However, as the nucleus began to grow, face-centered cubic (fcc) structure was observed at the core, while bcc structure was found on the liquid-crystal interface. As the crystal reached larger sizes, fcc structure dominated. Our results are the first steps to developing new methods to control both the polymorph and rate of nucleation.