Crystal engineering design strategies

This kind of crystal design is more often a failure than a success, and crystal strnctnre prediction, particularly hard crystal structure prediction is still extremely difficult (Section 8.8). Generally, a large majority of the currently known host structures discussed in Chapter 7, for example, were discovered by accident rather than design. However, as our knowledge of the factors involved grows, in tandem with more powerful computational and modelling tools, more successes may be expected. 

At the other end of the two-component spectrum are tectons that possess mntnally complementary shapes or functionality (e.g. hydrogen bond acid and base), which crystallise together preferentially 

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In the case of intercalates we have seen how the inclusion of guests swells the layers, such that the materials respond dynamically to the intercalation process. We now turn to a different approach in which a crystal engineering based design strategy has created rigid, well-defined materials based on ionic hydrogen-bonded solids in which polar guanidinium disulfonate layers - (C(NH2)3+)2... 

The strategy for the generation of inclusion compounds by the use of various organic host materials with appropriate guest molecules as templates has been shown to be an important approach in the structural design or modification of the host lattice, and has the potential of yielding fruitful results in crystal engineering. 

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