5: Avoidance of Crystallization in Biological Systems — Read

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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.

5.1: Introduction
5.2: Nucleation and crystallization
5.3: The water-sucrose system
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.
5.5: Avoidance of crystallization by freeze resistance
5.6: Summary
5.7: Questions

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