An interfacial energy mechanism for the complete inhibition of crystal growth by inhibitor adsorption.

We present a unified model for complete crystal-growth inhibition based on the thermodynamics of interfaces. The premise for our model is that the adsorption of inhibitor leads to a reduction in interfacial tension or edge energy for the crystal surface or step, respectively. In our formulation, the work to add a layer or grow a step increases due to the difference in interfacial tensions or edge energies for surfaces with and without an adsorbed inhibitor. For a large enough difference in interfacial tensions or edge energies, complete inhibition of growth is realized when the total work does not decrease as more crystals are formed. We demonstrate that our model can provide a theoretical description of critical subcooling data for ice with antifreeze proteins and glycoproteins, critical subcooling data for hydrates and ionic crystals, and critical supersaturation data for various crystal systems.