BACG Crystals in Art Winners
The BACG Crystals in Art Competition celebrates the extraordinary beauty of crystallisation through creativity, science, and imagination. Open to all BACG Annual Conference attendees, the competition invites you to showcase your crystals as art, whether captured through microscopy, photography, or experimental imaging. From subtle structures to striking visual statements, this is your chance to reveal just how inspiring crystals can be.
2024 Winners
2024 Winner: Crystal Tree
Contestant: Jerry Heng
Description: This was an experiment conducted as part of a school outreach activity in growing a crystal tree. The picture was collected with a mobile phone.
2024 Runner Up: Lotus Leaf Crystal
Contestant: Yao Li
Description: The Lotus Leaf Crystal is a mesmerizing formation that evokes the serene beauty of lotus leaves floating on a tranquil pond. This unique crystal exhibits vibrant green hues with delicate, radial patterns reminiscent of the intricate veining on a lotus leaf. The crystal’s surface glistens with an iridescent sheen, capturing light in a way that mimics the natural reflection of water. Obtained by melting by hotstage microscope.
2023 Winners
2023 Winner: Jack Frost Crystals
Contestant: Mariana Diniz
Description: The picture submitted showcases a vial after a solubility experiment, in which a known amount of griseofulvin in acetonitrile solution was left to evaporate at room temperature. Upon solvent evaporation, the griseofulvin crystallised in a shape that resembles Jack Frost, the famous personification of frost, ice, snow, winter, and freezing cold. He is held responsible for frosty weather, and leaving fern-like patterns on cold windows in winter… Just as we can see in the image submitted.
2023 2nd Place: Cave in the Crystal
Contestant: Josia Tonn
Description: These crystals are a scandium fluoride salt and have been produced from antisolvent crystallization. To achieve crystal growth, specific operational parameters were necessary. In this case the conditions for crystal growth have been a little too good, so that the edges grew faster than the inside. The phenomenon is called hopper crystal. The rare earth scandium is incorporated in a (NH4)3ScF6 structure and is recovered from hydrometallurgical waste stream of aluminium production.
2023 3rd Place: The Key to the Crystalline World
Contestant: Xin Su
Description: These are the crystals of Perylene, which look like a key. We call it ‘The key to the crystalline world’. It grows via sublimation crystallization method, and it is the polycrystal not a single crystal.
2022 Winners
2022 Winner: Pride Crystals
Contestant: Krishna Hari
Affiliation: University of Limerick
Object Imaged: L-alanine and trans-4-hydroxy proline crystals
Conditions: Slow evapouration
Image taken with: Phone camera
Description: Like humans, crystals come in different shapes, styles and are unique. The background of the picture hints at the birefringent properties of these crystals and coincidentally is the pride LGBTQ+ flag. The rainbow colours highlight the diversity of crystals, and of people.
2022 Joint 2nd Place: Spherulites in technicolours
Contestant: Paolo Lucaioli
Affiliation: Thermo Fisher Scientific Cork (Ireland)
Object Imaged: Pharmaceutical Active Ingredient (no name available for confidentiality reasons)
Conditions: Confidential
Image taken with: Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) with Secondary Electron (SE) detector. The original image was then elaborated with Photoshop.
Description: Crystallisation is often described as an art as much as a science, and this SEM image—artistically reimagined in the style of Andy Warhol’s Flowers—highlights how crystals can truly be considered works of art; the original image was captured during physical characterisation of an active ingredient that presented formulation challenges. The particle exhibits a rose-like spherulitic morphology, a radially organised crystal habit whose size and structure influence key physical properties, with downstream effects on both manufacturing processes and API performance..
2022 Joint 2nd Place: Colour of Life
Contestant: Lihong Jia
Affiliation: Tianjin University
Object Imaged: Aspirin
Conditions: The saturated solution of aspirin in isopropanol was evaporated for one week at room temperature.
Image taken with: Stereomicroscope
2020 Winners
2020 Winner: Sunrise Swords on the Frozen Lake
Contestant: Sean William Connolly
Affiliation: University of Kent
Object Imaged: Organic crystal of a Donor-Acceptor Stenhouse Adduct molecule
Conditions: Crystallised from Chloroform
Image taken with: Phone camera looking down microscope lens
2020 2nd Place: Skyscrapers
Contestant: Shiqiang Wang
Affiliation: University of Limerick
Object Imaged: A coordination polymer or metal-organic framework crystallized for 1.5 years
Conditions: The solution was heated at around 100 degree C for 1 day and then filtered to a new vial. The vial was left still for 1.5 years.
Image taken with: Microscope; MeiTu software
2020 3rd Place: Colour of Life
Contestant: Rajshree Chakrabarti
Affiliation: University of Houston
Object Imaged: Protoporphyrin IX
Conditions: Crystallised from butanol
Image taken with: Scanning Electron Microscope