Seminar Abstract:

Relative to the number of metal carbodiimides reported in literature, very few are known to
demonstrate polymorphism. This relatively underexplored aspect of metal carbodiimide
synthesis is, in part, limited due to lack of a predictive model to determine which crystal
systems may exhibit polymorphism. Measuring theoretical structural complexity can be
accomplished by hand or by open-source programs to ascertain the relative complexity of
known crystal systems to investigate entropic trends and locate theoretical polymorphs
that may have been overlooked. This methodology was utilized by Juan Medina-Jurado et
al. to predict a new polymorph of Y2(NCN)3 as well as a new polymorph of Li2Sn(NCN)3,
both of which they successfully synthesized. These findings show that it may be possible to
quantitatively predict and synthesize new polymorphs in previously studied crystal
systems.