5: Avoidance of Crystallization in Biological Systems
- Page ID
- 7806
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www.doitpoms.ac.uk/tlplib/bi...stal/index.php
Learning Objectives
- Understand how nucleation and crystallization occur.
- Be aware of the reasons why crystallization in the cells of living systems is usually fatal.
- Appreciate the importance of sugars as solutes in the cellular liquid.
- Understand the ways in which some living systems avoid crystal formation.
- 5.4: Avoidance of crystallization by glass formation
- Crystal formation upon dehydration can be avoided by forming a glass. Glasses are amorphous, and form by a continuous process (no interface or solidification front is involved). Their structure is comparable to that of a liquid (some short-range order is observed, but no long-range order), but their properties are those of a solid.