Morphogenesis evolution of calcite crystals on self-assembled monolayers in the presence of block copolymer additives

PMSE 103

Tongxin Wang, tw@seas.upenn.edu1, Joanna Aizenberg, jaizenberg@lucent.com2, Hans G. Börner, Hans.Boerner@mpikg-golm.mpg.de3, and Shu Yang, shuyang@seas.upenn.edu1. (1) Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, 3231 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, (2) Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ 07974, (3) Colloid Department, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Am Mühlenberg 1, Potsdam, 14424, Germany
We develop a new synthetic approach that offers new promise toward the synthesis of calcite crystals with tailored size, orientation, morphology, and location. Functional self-assembled monolayers (SAMs), including 11-mercapto-1-undecanoic acid and 3-mercapto-1-propanesulfonate sodium, respectively, were used as nucleation templates and block copolymer, poly(ethylene oxide-b-aspatic acid) (PEO-b-PAsp), were introduced to as soluble additive. While the initial orientation of calcite was determined by SAMs, addition of polymers led to template-dependent morphologenesis evolution. At a relatively low block polymer concentration, the polymers mainly act as growth modifiers, leading to uniform crystal shape, size and orientation. At an intermediate polymer concentration, polymers participate in both nucleation and growth modification. When the concentration is high enough, the calcite lost preferential orientation. Currently we investigate the interaction between block copolymers and Ca2+ to better understand the roles of polymers.
 

Block Copolymers as Nanoscale Materials
8:00 AM-11:20 AM, Monday, 11 September 2006 San Francisco Marriott -- Salon 7, Oral

Division of Polymeric Materials: Science & Engineering

The 232nd ACS National Meeting, San Francisco, CA, September 10-14, 2006