High ceramic-content biomineralized structures like abalone nacre and antler bone have a layered-architecture at the nanoscale, consisting of a majority phase of elastic reinforcement platelets or fibrils embedded in a minority viscoelastic phase of proteins and polysaccharides. The synthesis of such systems artificially has attracted widespread interest, with a goal to designing tough composites with adaptable mechanical properties. Here we report results on synthesis pathways towards fabricating such materials, including a chemical infiltration route where ceramic nanoparticles nucleate and grow inside precursor organic multilayers and a physical layer-by-layer route where a nacre-like geometry is fabrucated using halloysite nanorods and polyelectrolytes, and discuss their structural and mechanical similarities with natural biomineralized systems. TGA is used to calculate the rate of mineralization within multilayer films, X-ray diffraction to characterize the structure, and micromechanical testing techniques including nanoindentation to compare the synthetic composite's mechanical performance with natural biomineralized tissues like nacre.

Naturally inspired mineralized ceramic/polyelectrolyte multilayer films assembled by physicochemical processes

245th National Meeting (2013)

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