"Highlights in Mineralogical Crystallography" presents a collection of review articles with the common topic: structural properties of minerals and synthetic analogues. It is a valuable resource for mineralogists, materials scientists, crystallographers, and earth scientists. This book includes: An introduction to the RRUFF database for structural, spectroscopic, and chemical mineral identification. A systematic evaluation of structural complexity of minerals. ab initio computer modelling of mineral surfaces. Natural quasicrystals of meteoritic origin. The potential role of terrestrial ringwoodite on the water content of the Earth's mantle. Structural characterization of nanocrystalline bio-related minerals by electron-diffraction tomography. The uniqueness of mayenite-type compounds as minerals and high-tech ceramics.

This book covers the recent developments in Mineralogical Crystallography by presenting a collection of review articles written by prestigious, international authors in the field. The common topic of the papers is the structural characterization of minerals and synthetic analogues using different techniques.

What can we learn from nature? The study of the physical, chemical and structural properties of well-known minerals in the geo- and biosphere creates new opportunities for innovative applications in technology, environment or medicine. This book highlights today’s research on outstanding minerals such as garnets used as components in all solid state batteries, delafossite formation during wastewater treatment, monazites for the immobilization of high level radioactive waste or hyroxylapatite as bioactive material for medical implant applications. Contents Part I: High-technology materials Lithium ion–conducting oxide garnets Olivine-type battery materials Natural and synthetic zeolites Microstructure analysis of chalcopyrite-type CuInSe2 and kesterite-type Cu2ZnSnSe4 absorber layers in thin film solar cells Surface-engineered silica via plasma polymer deposition Crystallographic symmetry analysis in NiTi shape memory alloys Part II: Environmental mineralogy Gold, silver, and copper in the geosphere and anthroposphere: can industrial wastewater act as an anthropogenic resource? Applied mineralogy for recovery from the accident of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Phosphates as safe containers for radionuclides Immobilization of high-level waste calcine (radwaste) in perovskites Titanate ceramics for high-level nuclear waste immobilization Part III: Biomineralization, biomimetics, and medical mineralogy Patterns of mineral organization in carbonate biological hard materials Sea urchin spines as role models for biological design and integrative structures Nacre: a biomineral, a natural biomaterial, and a source of bio-inspiration Hydroxylapatite coatings: applied mineralogy research in the bioceramics field A procedure to apply spectroscopic techniques in the investigation of silica-bearing industrial materials

Crystallography remains, for mineralogy, one of the main sources of information on natural crystalline substances. A description of mineral species shape is carried out according to the principles of geometric crystallography; the crystal structure of minerals is determined using X-ray crystallography techniques, and physical crystallography approaches allow one to evaluate various properties of minerals, etc. However, the reverse comparison should not be forgotten as well: the crystallography science, in its current form, was born in the course of mineralogical research, long before preparative chemistry received such extensive development. It is worth noting that, even today, investigations of crystallographic characteristics of minerals regularly open up new horizons in materials science, because the possibilities of nature (fascinating chemical diversity; great variation of thermodynamic parameters; and, of course, almost endless processing time) are still not available for reproduction in any of the world's laboratories. This Special Issue is devoted to mineralogical crystallography, the oldest branch of crystallographic science, and aims to combine important surveys covering topics indicated in the keywords below.

At the dawn of structural crystallography, Friedrich, Knipping and von Laue carried out the first experiments and developed the theory of X-ray diffraction. From these early days, structural crystallography evolved at its own pace and found new partners in chemistry, physics, materials science, biology and other fields of physical sciences. Both morphological and structural crystallography, however, have remained as important instruments in the mineralogist's toolbox until today. Efforts to enhance the existing instrumentation, to improve our understanding of the theory of diffraction, to study nanoparticulate or poorly ordered materials, and to master large, complex structures continue in all fields of physical sciences. Mineralogy can thus use the fruits of this labour and include them in its toolbox.

In this volume, contributions covering the theoretical and practical aspects of multicomponent crystals provide a timely and contemporary overview of the state-of-the art of this vital aspect of crystal engineering/materials science. With a solid foundation in fundamentals, multi-component crystals can be formed, for example, to enhance pharmaceutical properties of drugs, for the specific control of optical responses to external stimuli and to assemble molecules to allow chemical reactions that are generally intractable following conventional methods. Contents Pharmaceutical co-crystals: crystal engineering and applications Pharmaceutical multi-component crystals: improving the efficacy of anti-tuberculous agents Qualitative and quantitative crystal engineering of multi-functional co-crystals Control of photochromism in N-salicylideneaniline by crystal engineering Quinoline derivatives for multi-component crystals: principles and applications N-oxides in multi-component crystals and in bottom-up synthesis and applications Multi-component crystals and non-ambient conditions Co-crystals for solid-state reactivity and thermal expansion Solution co-crystallisation and its applications The salt-co-crystal continuum in halogen-bonded systems Large horizontal displacements of benzene-benzene stacking interactions in co-crystals Simultaneous halogen and hydrogen bonding to carbonyl and thiocarbonylfunctionality Crystal chemistry of the isomeric N,N’-bis(pyridin-n-ylmethyl)-ethanediamides, n = 2, 3 or 4 Solute・solvent interactions mediated by main group element (lone-pair)・・・π(aryl) interactions