In-situ dynamic crystallography at the Australian Synchrotron enables the study of chemical and structural changes in crystals under the influence of external stimuli. These dynamic studies can follow transient species, reaction intermediates, and kinetics, essentially taking ‘snapshots’ of reactions as they progress. Varying the temperature, pressure, or position, or irradiating the crystal with visible or UV light are all now possible at the MX1 and MX2 beamlines of the Australian Synchrotron. However, challenges remain in developing strategies for collecting, processing and analysing the data these experiments produce.
Recent photo-crystallographic work exploring the formation of radicals in a europium coordination polymer, the de-carbonylation and subsequent solvent coordination of transition metal complexes tethered to metal-organic frameworks, and ring closing reactions in a poly-oxometallate capsule will be presented, as well as the development of capabilities for automating the data collection and processing for dynamic experiments.