The acidic ammonothermal technique is used to develop a technology for production of free-standing gallium nitride (GaN) crystals to match the demand driven by the device technology for the wide-band-gap semiconductor group-Ill element nitrides. Here we report on advances toward a deeper understanding of parameters that govern mass transport and seeded crystallization of GaN under the conditions of acidic ammonothermal crystal growth with the ultimate goal to improve the process control. Comparison with the basic ammonothermal environment has been made. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.