0000000000172036
AUTHOR
Jürgen Senker
Microphase separation upon crystallization of small amphiphilic molecules: ‘low’ temperature form II of sodium benzoate (E 211)
A so far unknown low temperature polymorph (form II crystallized at 350 °C) of the common food preservative sodium benzoate (NaBz; E 211) could be crystallized by annealing (7 days) of the poorly crystalline technical material. Its crystal structure was solved by indexing a tiny single crystal by electron diffraction followed by structure solution and refinement applying powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD). The new polymorph shows many structural similarities to form I (crystallized at 420 °C). Both form I and II are the result of a microphase separation: the structures consist of pseudo-hexagonal packings of rod-shaped micelles where the core consists of sodium cations being coordinated by the…
Solving the Hydrogen and Lithium Substructure of Poly(triazine imide)/LiCl Using NMR Crystallography
Poly(triazine imide) with incorporated lithium chloride has recently attracted substantial attention due to its photocatalytic activity for water splitting. However, an apparent H/Li disorder prevents the delineation of structure–property relationships, for example, with respect to band-gap tuning. Herein, we show that through a combination of one- and two-dimensional, multinuclear solid-state NMR spectroscopy, chemical modelling, automated electron diffraction tomography, and an analysis based on X-ray pair distribution functions, it is finally possible to resolve the H/Li substructure. In each cavity, one hydrogen atom is bound to a bridging nitrogen atom, while a second one protonates a …