The synthesis of long-term stable amorphous calcium carbonate in water-free ethylene glycol system without any phase stabilizer

Abstract

Amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) plays an important role in the biomineralization process and has a wide application in biological medicine area. In the present work, stable ACC was successfully prepared in water-free ethylene glycol system, by mixing the ethylene glycol solution of CaCl2 and K2CO3 without phase stabilizer. The CaCO3 obtained at different aging times (from 1 min to 3 months) and reaction temperatures (from 0 °C to 60 °C) were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and selected area electronic diffraction (SAED). XRD results indicate that ACC is the only phase in all samples and SAED results verify the existence of ACC. SEM and TEM images display that the irregular nano-particles were aggregated into irregular porous micro-particles, the pores become smaller with the aging time increase and the reaction temperature elevating, and some relative regular particles (near ellipsoidal or spherical) were formed when system is aged for a long time (3 months) at a low temperature (20 °C) or for a short time (30 min) at a high temperature (60 °C). As-synthesized ACC can be persistent in vacuum or organic solvent for a long time (1 month) at room temperature.