Abstract
The intricate, hierarchical, highly reproducible, and exquisite biosilica structures formed by diatoms have generated great interest to understand biosilicification processes in nature. This curiosity is driven by the quest of researchers to understand nature's complexity, which might enable reproducing these elegant natural diatomaceous structures in our laboratories via biomimetics, which is currently beyond the capabilities of material scientists. To this end, significant understanding of the biomolecules involved in biosilicification has been gained, wherein cationic peptides and proteins are found to play a key role in the formation of these exquisite structures. Although biochemical factors responsible for silica formation in diatoms have been studied for decades, the challenge to mimic biosilica structures similar to those synthesized by diatoms in their natural habitats has not hitherto been successful. This has led to an increasingly interesting debate that physico-chemical environment surrounding diatoms might play an additional critical role towards the control of diatom morphologies. The current study demonstrates this proof of concept by using cationic amino acids as catalyst/template/scaffold towards attaining diatom-like silica morphologies under biomimetic conditions in ionic liquids.
Highlights
Silica is an important inorganic material due to its extensive use in a wide range of applications including molecular sieves, resins, catalysts, polymer support, and biomedicine
We demonstrate for the first time that welldefined silica structures that seem to resemble the morphology of diatoms present in nature to some extent, can be synthesized at room temperature by using IL 1-butyl-3-methylimidazoliumtetrafluoroborate [BMIM][BF4] as a unique solvent for biomimetic silicification, and cationic amino acids as bio-catalysts
In a control experiment, wherein IL was replaced with deionized water in the presence of amino acids, no turbidity or precipitation was observed, thereby negating the possibility of water-mediated hydrolysis of TEOS in [BMIM][BF4]
Summary
Silica is an important inorganic material due to its extensive use in a wide range of applications including molecular sieves, resins, catalysts, polymer support, and biomedicine. We demonstrate for the first time that welldefined silica structures that seem to resemble the morphology of diatoms present in nature to some extent, can be synthesized at room temperature by using IL 1-butyl-3-methylimidazoliumtetrafluoroborate [BMIM][BF4] as a unique solvent for biomimetic silicification, and cationic amino acids as bio-catalysts.
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