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Crystal Dehydration |
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Collaboration
has been established between the EMBL
Grenoble, MAX-lab and Diamond to develop crystal
dehydration methods to improve the diffraction quality of macromolecular
crystals using the HC1-x dehydration device
developed at the EMBL-Grenoble, and to extend the use of the device for
modifying crystals online. Supported dehydration experiments can be
carried out at the ESRF/EMBL, MAX-lab
and Diamond The first step in these experiments is to
define the relative humidity in equilibrium with the mother liquor of the
system under study; this can often be quite time-consuming. In order to
reduce the time spent on this stage of the experiment, the equilibrium
relative humidity for a range of concentrations of the most commonly used
precipitants has been measured. The relationship between the precipitant
solution and equilibrium relative humidity is explained by Raoult's law for
the equilibrium vapour pressure of water above a solution. The concentration
of buffers, additives and detergents used will have a negligable effect on
the RH in equilibrium with the mother liquor and is dominated by the primary
precipitant. Click here to access the RH calculation applet.
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