Mechanical engineer’s method to control growth of carbonate-based crystals featured in PNAS
Growing crystals just got a little easier thanks to work by an international team from Virginia Tech, Harvard University, and AMOLF, operated by the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter Institute AMOLF) in Netherlands.
The team included Ling Li, assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the College of Engineering.
The group’s work recently appeared in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) with Li as the first author. Research on controlled nucleation and growth of crystals will provide insights for understanding, mimicking, and ultimately expanding upon nature’s strategies of mineralization for developing functional microscopic structures.
The growth of crystals has been an important part of trying to mimic biological mineral formation as biomineralized structures in nature, such as seashells and bones, which are far more durable and advanced than those created synthetically today. Using one of two control parameters, super-saturation or nucleus lattice mismatch, researchers could control the nucleation and growth of carbonate-based crystals.
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