Preliminary investigations into solutal flow about growing tetragonal lysozyme crystals

Abstract A series of preliminary experiments were done to investigate solutal flow about growing lysozyme crystals and its effects. Density gradient driven flow as observed using a schlieren optical system. Crystals used ranged from 0.3 to 1.72 mm across the (110) face, and protein concentrations were from 3.7 to 23.7 mg/ml ( C sat = 1.2 mg/ml at 18°C). The convective plume velocities were found to be from 10 to 50 μm/s, which correlated with those predicted to occur based upon a diffusive-convective model. When micro-crystals of lysozyme ( .5 mm) crystals in the terminal phases of a typical crystal growth procedure.