Acc. chem. Res.: Prof. Xie Zhaoxiong and Prof. Kuang Qin, Xiamen University, published a review of the supersaturation method to control the surface structure of nanocrystals

Professor Xie Zhaoxiong and Professor Kuang Qin, School of chemistry and chemical engineering, Xiamen University, were invited to write the review paper "towards rational designing surface structures of micro - and nano crystals: role of supersaturation", which was published in acc chem Res (DOI: 10.1021 / ACS Accounts 8b00344), a Journal of American Chemical Society This paper systematically introduces the research progress in this field since the research group put forward the innovative method of controlling micro / nano crystal surface structure by supersaturation of growth elements in 2013 Many important physical and chemical properties of nanocrystals are closely related to their surface structure Therefore, the surface structure regulation and related theoretical research of nanocrystals have been concerned by researchers for a long time In the classical theory of crystal nucleation and growth, the morphology of crystal near equilibrium state is determined by the specific surface energy of different crystal surfaces, which can be predicted and determined by Wulff's crystal surface construction theory However, most of the international research on how to control the surface energy and the surface structure of nanocrystals is still in the stage of trial and error In 2013, Professor Xie Zhaoxiong's research group and academician Tian Zhongqun's research group worked out that the surface energy of crystal is closely related to the supersaturation of crystal growth elements, that is, the surface structure of nanocrystals can be determined by the supersaturation of nanocrystal growth elements The higher the supersaturation of growth elements, the higher the surface energy of the exposed surface of the synthesized nanocrystals (j.am Chem SOC 2013 , 135 , 9311 ）。 Since then, the theory has been applied to the surface structure control of ionic crystal, molecular crystal, precious metal and metal oxide micro / nano crystal by many research groups at home and abroad After a brief introduction of the basic principles of crystal growth, this review emphasizes the control of supersaturation of growth units on the surface structure of micro / nano crystals from a theoretical point of view Combined with typical cases of different types of micro / nano crystal surface structure evolution, it focuses on the growth unit supersaturation and degree manipulation Solvent, additive, reaction rate and overpotential are the key factors in the control of micro / nano crystal surface structure In addition, this review briefly discusses the role of supersaturation in crystal growth dynamics, focusing on the formation of spherical micro / nano microcrystals under extremely high supersaturation This theory makes up for the lack of crystal growth theory under the condition of non-equilibrium and supersaturation It can provide effective guidance for the reasonable design and synthesis of micro / nano crystal with different surface structure (especially with high surface energy crystal surface) This work was supported by the Ministry of science and Technology (2015cb932301, 2017yfa0206500 and 2017yfa0206801), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21330008, 1603178, 21671163 and 21773190), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2016m602066 and 2017t100468).