2010/01/14 by Hermann Ehrlich, Paul Simon, W. Carrillo‐Cabrera +16 · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Chemistry · Engineering · #Marine Sponges and Natural Products #Synthetic Organic Chemistry Methods #Marine Biology and Environmental Chemistry #Aragonite #Biomineralization #Biocomposite #Chitin #Nanotechnology #Amorphous solid #Materials science #Biomimetic materials #Amorphous calcium carbonate #Amorphous silica #Polymer science #Chemistry #Chemical engineering #Calcium carbonate #Composite number #Organic chemistry #Composite material #Chitosan
paper · doi:10.1021/cm9026607
openalex publication_date 2010/01/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03
Biological materials are a rewarding area of modern materials science, yielding both evolutionary insights and inspiration for biomimetic research. In particular, biocomposite structures are valuable sources of novel structures with unusual chemical properties, and they are very informative for the mechanisms of biomineralization. Here we describe a unique biocomposite of amorphous silica, crystalline aragonite, and chitin from species of the order Verongida, a group of marine sponges. The structures have been analyzed with a diverse suite of techniques, revealing a chitinous template for siliceous overgrowth containing aragonite-based crystal aggregates. Sponge chitin is an example of a specific template where two minerals in amorphous and crystalline forms are formed together with an organic molecule.