Formation of Vaterite Mesocrystals in Biomineral-like Structures and Implication for Biomineralization

• 1、CAS Key Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and Environments, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026
• 2、School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026

Abstract：Vaterite mesocrystals with a hexagonal prismstructure were successfully achieved in the presence of sodiumcitrate (SC) and sodium dodecyl benzenesulfonate (SDBS) byuse of a gas-di ?usion method at room temperature. XRD and FESEM results reveal that thesuperstructures are composed of hundreds of well-stackednano ?akes, which construct the laminated hexagonal prism ofvaterite. TEM and SAED analyses show that the hexagonal prism has the same crystallographic symmetry as single-crystalvaterite. Combining with the results of TG-DTA and BET analyses, it con?rms that the hexagonal prismatic architectures are orientationally aligned mesocrystals of vatreite. However, nohexagonal prism structures can be produced only with SC or SDBS, indicating that the cooperation of SC and SDBS isindispensable to the formation of hexagonal prismatic vaterite mesocrystals. The hexagonal prism mesocrystals of vaterite exhibitremarkable similarity to the biogenic vaterite. Therefore, the current study on vaterite mesocrystals will be helpful for us to mimic and learnfrom nature and may provide another pathway toward full insight into biomineralization mechanism.

Keywords： Biomineralization vaterite organic functional groups mesocrystal