Controlled synthesis of calcium carbonate crystals

Calcium carbonate is one of the most abundant minerals. It is widely used in many fields such as water treatment, pigment, paper, ceramic, cosmetic, rubber, sulfur dioxide scrubbing, glass manufacture and heavy metal complexation. Furthermore, the studies related with calcium carbonate has been attracted a great deal of attention in biomineralization. Supersaturation, pH, temperature, many inorganic/organic additives can influence calcium carbonate crystallization. The presence of additives may control the crystallization process, polymorph selection, growth mechanism, nucleation, shape and size of the crystal. These additives could control the crystallization process at nanoscale level. In recent years, ultrasonic irradiation was used in chemical processes to obtain novel materials with unusual properties. Ultrasonic irradiation applications for the synthesis of calcium carbonate have been a big attention. Nucleation, especially primary nucleation in nominally particle-free solutions, can be induced by applying ultrasonic waves. Also, the reduction of agglomeration can be resulted from excellent mixing obtained by Ultrasonic waves. In the present work, the effect of ultrasound on calcium carbonate crystallization in the presence of biopolymer, carboxymethyl inulin (CMI) was investigated. We studied the influence of sonicator amplitude, probe immersion depth (PID) and biopolymer concentration on the formation of calcium carbonate. CMI is a biodegradable, environmentally friendly polysaccharide-based polycarboxylate. CMI was chosen as a biopolymer because the biodegradability and non-toxicity of CMI allows a wide application possibility in industries.