A Critical Analysis of Calcium Carbonate Mesocrystals

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2014 Jul 12

PMID 25014563

Citations 24

Authors

Yi-Yeoun Kim

Anna S Schenk

Johannes Ihli

Alex N Kulak

Nicola B J Hetherington

Chiu C Tang

Wolfgang W Schmahl

Erika Griesshaber

Geoffrey Hyett

Fiona C Meldrum

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The term mesocrystal has been widely used to describe crystals that form by oriented assembly, and that exhibit nanoparticle substructures. Using calcite crystals co-precipitated with polymers as a suitable test case, this article looks critically at the concept of mesocrystals. Here we demonstrate that the data commonly used to assign mesocrystal structure may be frequently misinterpreted, and that these calcite/polymer crystals do not have nanoparticle substructures. Although morphologies suggest the presence of nanoparticles, these are only present on the crystal surface. High surface areas are only recorded for crystals freshly removed from solution and are again attributed to a thin shell of nanoparticles on a solid calcite core. Line broadening in powder X-ray diffraction spectra is due to lattice strain only, precluding the existence of a nanoparticle sub-structure. Finally, study of the formation mechanism provides no evidence for crystalline precursor particles. A re-evaluation of existing literature on some mesocrystals may therefore be required.

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