Themed collection Celebrating the CrystEngComm Advisory Board and their research!

Nathaniel Rosi, Shuhei Furukawa and Stuart Batten share their experiences of working on MOFs in future Nobel-winning laboratories.

Christian Doonan and Paolo Falcaro discuss engineering heterostructures for crystalline framework materials.

Crystallinity enhances DAE photoisomerization by enabling reactive packing or limiting relaxation. This Highlight reviews DAE crystal chemistry, spanning single molecules to metal–organic frameworks.

The process of producing a nanosized cocrystal employing two or more components that possess hydrogen bonds, pi–pi stacking, and van der Waals interactions is known as nanococrystallization.

This overview, summarizing recent progresses in the fabrication of multi-functional oxide nanomaterials for sustainable and environmental end-uses, sheds light on the interplay between their chemico-physical features and functional properties.

This tutorial review introduces the basic concepts of spin crossover with a focus on crystallographic studies.

Mechanically flexible single crystals are emerging as a useful class of materials due to their unique combination of crystallinity and molecular-scale responses to applied mechanical stress.

H₂O₂ vapor diffusion forms single crystals of U(VI) peroxide, studtite, that can be dehydrated to create SCXRD-quality crystals of metastudtite.

Pharmaceutical multicomponent form screening can be accelerated by coupling high-throughput resonant acoustic mixing with structural elucidation by electron diffraction.

The ability to overcome a suppressed yield for a [2 + 2] cycloaddition reaction, due to static disorder, by heating is reported.

Three novel cocrystals of milrinone with sesamol, resveratrol, and niflumic acid were synthesized, with MR.SES showing enhanced solubility and potential for improved cardioprotective effects.

Ketanserin (KTS), a BCS class II drug with low solubility, was paired with acidic coformers (maleic, fumaric, adipic, and sulfamic acids) to create stable salts through wet granulation. XRD, DSC, TGA, UV, and Hirshfeld analysis confirmed that these salts enhanced solubility.

Liquid- and vapour-phase conversion of aligned Cu(OH)₂ nanobelts into crystalline coatings of Cu-BDC and Cu-CDC MOFs, leads to differences in the crystal phase, morphology and crystallographic orientation.

The formation of caffeine and 1-hydroxy-2-naphtoic acid cocrystals at a water–oil interface was controlled by potential difference, Δ^w_oϕ, favouring one polymorphic form of the cocrystal.

The supramolecular association based on X⋯S interactions in crystals of halogenated dithiocarbamate esters is evaluated.

The structures of a series of fluorinated 2-methylpropamides demonstrate the relevance of strong H-bonds and weak intermolecular interactions involving organic fluorine. These were also characterized via QTAIM to understand their electronic features.

Polymorphs 1a, 1b, 1c reported by Kumar et al. were reinvestigated by validated solution and solid-state NMR, X-ray diffraction, and computations to show that the 3 polymorphs do not retain their distinct conformational identity in solution.

The quality of charge density representations in linear response phonon calculations for organic molecular crystals significantly impacts the predicted thermodynamic properties.

Furosemide was crystallised with five pyridine derivatives to produce multicomponent crystals that were subsequently desolvated to study their structural changes and solid-form evolution.

A new tetratopic carboxylic acid ligand containing a fluorescent pyrrolo[3,2-b]pyrrole is reported, and its structural chemistry in two solvated forms and a strontium(II) MOF are examined alongside its photophysical behaviour.

Mechanochemistry enables the selective formation of different silver sulfadiazine coordination compounds, with enhanced antimicrobial activity, by tuning the milling conditions and materials.

Co₂Cl₂(bbta) features a high density of open metal sites (3.8 nm⁻³) and demonstrates good performance for CO capture, with an uptake capacity of 3.06 mmol g⁻³ at 298 K.

Multicomponent organic solids (cocrystals, ionic cocrystals) form via noncovalent forces. Solution growth yields mixed phases, while mechanochemistry enables pure, scalable synthesis. In situ PXRD reveals solvent/grinding-controlled transformations.

Two novel Au(III)–cytosine complexes were synthesized and structurally characterized. Solid-state analysis and DFT calculations reveal the key role of π-hole regium bonds and anion–π interactions in directing supramolecular assembly.

Intermolecular interactions in crystalline substituted thieno[2,3-d]pyrimidines were examined, highlighting sulfur-based non-covalent contacts through electrostatic potentials, QTAIM, and 3D deformation density maps.

This study provides fundamental understanding of the impact of the crystalline sponge on guest molecule conformation by evaluating geometric distortion from ideal, gas phase calculated geometries and the related energetic cost.

Two new coordination polymers (1 (2D) and 2 (3D)), based on the use of a V-shaped ligand L (9,9-bis(4-carboxyphenyl)fluorene) combined with Cu(NO₃)₂ or Zn(NO₃)₂, were synthesized and structurally characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction.

The attractive nature of type II C–F⋯F–C interaction has been established using experimental and theoretical modelling of electron densities using multipole modelling of high-resolution X-ray diffraction data and theoretical structure factors.

We found a novel cocrystal consisting of captopril, which is an amino acid-derived drug having a thiol group, and L-proline by using nano-spot-screening with LF-Raman. This cocrystal hydrate showed high hygroscopicity resulted from changes in intermolecular interactions.

Three new polycatenated mixed-ligand MOFs containing fluorene and naphthalene scaffolds have been solvothermally synthesized. Their solid-state luminescence has been investigated showing a Förster resonance energy transfer involving the two linkers.

Ionic liquid or not: hydrogen bonds such as the relatively rare N–H⋯S hydrogen bond lead in ionic liquid forming ion combinations to higher melting temperatures and lower decomposition points.

Interfacial ion transfer from organic phase to aqueous phase is employed as the basis for formation of barium sulfate crystals close to the interface.