#biommicry #sustainablematerials, #CaCO3, #biomineralization, #thermodynamics #LabFun #slowscience (You can find a short "Take home" summary at the end)
Did you ever wondered how organisms routinely develop their hard parts? For decades we have tried to mimic inorganic mineralization process in organisms, but we are still failing to reproduce the intricate and highly functional structures of biological controlled biominerals. Biologic mineralization occurs at low temperatures and in many cases, CO2 is turned into a solid mineral. It would be a big sustainability win, if we could mimic biologic strategies and create strong and durable materials at low temperature meanwhile capturing CO2.
“Recent” research updates from our work:
In 2015-ish Anne, Ron and I got interested in using peptoid nanosheets to create bio-mineral nano-composites that could be uses as building-block for creating strong and tough materials. We wanted to “tame” mineralization of calcium carbonate by controlling both a kinetic and thermodynamic parameter in our system. We used the interfacial free energy to decrease the saturation needed to mineralize and we used saturation index as a controller for mineralization pathway.
The study has been several years in the making, and I am sincerely grateful for the input we got from our coauthors enroute and especially for Seniz who drove this work the last years.
Read more in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces:
In the manuscript we show that controlling mineralization with saturation levels could be a very viable strategy for shaping rate and polymorph. Another strategy is through to be the application of organic molecules. Organic molecules can both help shape mineral shapes and growth kinetics by actively blocking of growth sites. Another benefit of integrating organic molecules with a mineralization is the formation of changed physical properties. The identification of the biomolecules in shell materials are challenged by e.g. low concentration, solubility and preservation and lack of appropriate in-situ techniques where little sample preparation is required. We recently applied non-contact, submicron, visible probe photothermal infrared spectroscopy to shells and extracts of the bivalve mollusc Arctica islandica. This shell of this long lived mollusk has complex inorganic-organic nanocomposites, which is still not fully characterized. With our recent work we came one step closer.
Oluwatoosin Bunmi Adebayo Agbaje has been working with bulk and microscale analysis of bivalves during and after his PhD. He recently successfully applied O-PTIR to study the micro-texture in situ and resolve the nature of the included organic components. Using O-PTIR he was able to simultaneously show organic and inorganic phases in the shells and demonstrate the presence of β-chitin.
Read more in Chemical Geology:
Take home exercises:
Do a google search: “mollusc shell SEM”. - and next time you engulf your mussels or oysters, please do appreciate their shell architecture.
Next time you pick up a piece of chalk, do allow your self to realize that the rock is made of tiny single celled organisms that all are able to perform sustainable material production. Do a google search on “coccoliths.” How amazing is that?
Catching up with the eventful 2024 . #1/5
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