Morphology Regulation of Monosodium Urate Monohydrate Crystals via Fabricated Uniform Hydrogel Slices

Crystal morphology control is a common concern for the crystal engineering and relevant applications. For example, urate crystallization is important for the study of the hyperuricemia induced gout. Herein, biomimetic hydrogel material with uniform surface and vertical structure is fabricated, which possesses hybrid pH-temperature responsibility for high-efficiency interfacial nucleation and concentration regulation functions. The developed hydrogel layers are prepared to slice type as a functional microplatform and then added into the uric acid dihydrate (UAD) crystal solution to induce monosodium urate monohydrate (MSUM) crystallization. With different dosage of the hydrogel slices (HGS) in the solution, diverse crystal morphologies can be obtained in an efficient manner, such as “flower,” “sphere,” “sticky spheres,” which entirely distinguishes from the one prepared via no-HGS. This work explores a new path for revealing the relevant crystallization mechanism and developing crystal morphology control technology with hydrogel interfacial materials.