Hard biological materials—for example, seashells, bone or wood—fulfil critical structural
functions and display unique and attractive combinations of stiffness, strength and …

In the quest of increasing safety and efficiency in structural applications, learning from
natural materials can be a promising approach. Nature has evolved for billions of years to …

Nacre, or mother-of-pearl, the iridescent inner layer of many mollusk shells, is a biomineral
lamellar composite of aragonite (CaCO3) and organic sheets. Biomineralization frequently …

Biomolecules modulate inorganic crystallization to generate hierarchically structured
biominerals, but the atomic structure of the organic-inorganic interfaces that regulate …

Bacteria synthesize a wide range of intracellular submicrometer-sized inorganic precipitates
of diverse chemical compositions and structures, called biominerals. Their occurrences …

X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy and spectromicroscopy have
been extensively used to characterize biominerals. Using either Ca or C spectra, unique …

Elemental sulfur [S (0)] is a central and ecologically important intermediate in the sulfur
cycle, which can be used by a wide diversity of microorganisms that gain energy from its …

Biomineralization, the capacity to form minerals, has evolved in a great diversity of bacterial
lineages as an adaptation to different environmental conditions and biological functions …

Calcium materials, such as calcium carbonate, are produced in natural and industrial
settings that range from oceanic to biomedical. An array of biological and biomimetic …

Multiphasic calcium phosphate powders were synthesized by the acidic route, using lactic
acid as a chelating agent that allows the production of a stable and rich solution of calcium …