Polymorph Switching of Calcium Carbonate Crystals by Polymer‐Controlled Crystallization

By A. Xu, Wen-fei Dong, Markus Antonietti, H. Cölfen. 2008

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Polymer‐controlled crystallization of calcium carbonate crystals in solution by a gas diffusion method has been carried out in the presence of poly(sodium 4‐styrene sulfonate‐co‐N‐isopropylacrylamide) (PSS‐co‐PNIPAAM), and for the first time all three anhydrous polymorphs, calcite, vaterite, and aragonite could be selectively produced with a single additive. The selective polymorph synthesis can be nicely adjusted simply by concentration variations of polymer and calcium ions in the present reaction system. The simplicity of the system reveals the influence of Ca2+ and polymer concentration on the nucleation and crystal growth of CaCO3 via the balance between thermodynamic and kinetic reaction control. A single mechanistic framework employing particle mediated as well as ion mediated crystallization for polymorph control is proposed.

Subfields: Biomaterials, Biomedical Engineering, Paleontology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f85ac2972744fa57314e8d14ade0ca1b60c2d9f8