Abstract:

Amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) is highly unstable under the ambient conditions. However, studies on marine ascidian skeletons have revealed that ACC as a transient precursor to crystalline CaCO3 can stably exist for long time in organisms, and the stable ACC is usually membraneembedded. In this paper, phosphatidylcholine (PC) as the main component of biomembrane was used as mineralization additives to biomimic calcium carbonate mineralization. The mineralized products were characterized by Xray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR), and filedemission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) techniques. As a result, we found that PC indeed facilitates the formation and stabilization of ACC at the air/solution interface. Therefore, our experimental results may provide a further insight into formation and stabilization of biogenic ACC.

Key words:

amorphous calcium carbonate; phosphatidylcholine; mineralization modifier; biomineralization