Growth of hierarchical calcium carbonate crystals templated by biomolecules of lotus root

✍ Scribed by Long Chen; Fengkai Hu; Quan Zhou; Jinyu Sun; Hui Zhang

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 161 KB
• Volume: 44
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0232-1300
• DOI: 10.1002/crat.200900446

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

In this paper, crystal growth of calcium carbonate (CaCO~3~) in the presence of biomolecules of lotus root was investigated. Scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X‐ray powder diffractometry were used to characterize the products. The results indicate that calcite spherical particles were constructed from small rhombohedral subunits. Similar CaCO~3~ crystals were also gained when crystal growth of CaCO~3~ in aqueous solution containing extracts of lotus root was performed, suggesting that the soluble biomolecules of lotus root play a crucial role in directing the formation of hierarchical calcite spherical particles. The possible formation mechanism of the CaCO~3~ crystals by using lotus root is also discussed, which can be interpreted by particle‐aggregation based non‐classical crystallization laws. The biomolecules of lotus root might induce and control the nucleation and growth of calcium carbonate crystals. (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)