A Digital Mechanistic Workflow for Predicting Solvent-Mediated Crystal Morphology: The α and β Forms of l-Glutamic Acid

Abstract

The solvent-mediated crystal morphologies of the α and β polymorphic forms of l-glutamic acid are presented. This work applies a digital mechanistically based workflow that encompasses calculation of the crystal lattice energy and its constituent intermolecular synthons, their interaction energies, and their key role in understanding and predicting crystal morphology as well as assessing the surface chemistry, topology, and solvent binding on crystal habit growth surfaces. Through a comparison between the contrasting morphologies of the conformational polymorphs of l-glutamic acid, this approach highlights how the interfacial chemistry of organic crystalline materials and their inherent anisotropic interactions with their solvation environments direct their crystal habit with potential impact on their further downstream processing behavior.