The precipitation behavior of CaCO3 has been studied intensively over the last century and subsequently CaCO3 has developed into a model system to study nucleation and growth. However, very little is still known about the very early stages of a precipitation process (nucleation and early growth). The goal of our current work is to gather more information about the structure of key intermediates and to get a deeper understanding of the precipitation mechanism involved and how they can be specifically manipulated in the presence of organic additives. We use TEM and DLS in order to monitor nucleation and growth of the particles. Various polyelectrolytes (PMA, PSS, (AA)x(AMPS)y copolymers) have been investigated regarding their Ca2+-complexation behavior in the prenucleation stage by means of potentiometric, calorimetric and scattering techniques as well as regarding their impact on nucleation time, growth rate and surface stabilization of the resulting CaCO3 nanoparticles via DLS and TEM.

Early stages of calcium carbonate formation in the presence of polyionic additives

243rd National Meeting (2012)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.