Co-precipitation of silica and alkaline-earth carbonates using TEOS as silica source

We explore the use of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) as a silica source for the formation of carbonate-silica composite materials known as 'biomorphs'. The basic hydrolysis of TEOS furnishes silica in a controllable fashion, allowing a significantly higher reproducibility of the obtained silica-barium and silica-strontium carbonate co-precipitates compared to commercial water glass silica used so far. We further discuss the influence of ethanol used as a co-solvent on the morphologies of biomorphs, which are examined by optical microscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX)

Co-precipitation of silica and alkaline-earth carbonates using TEOS as silica source

We explore the use of tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) as a silica source for the formation of carbonate-silica composite materials known as ‘biomorphs’. The basic hydrolysis of TEOS furnishes silica in a controllable fashion, allowing a significantly higher reproducibility of the obtained silica–barium and silica–strontium carbonate co-precipitates compared to commercial water glass silica used so far. We further discuss the influence of ethanol used as a co-solvent on the morphologies of biomorphs, which are examined by optical microscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX)

Inorganic Self-Organized Silica Aragonite Biomorphic Composites

The precipitation of calcium carbonate in alkaline silica solutions results in the formation of complex curvilinear forms if aragonite formation is encouraged by growth at an elevated temperature (80 °C). The resulting coralline self-assembled silica-ca