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Materials

Gorgeous, Intricate Microflowers From Mineral Chemistry In A Beaker

Patterning method is inspired by how the environment shapes shells and coral

by Carmen Drahl
May 20, 2013 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 91, Issue 20

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Credit: Science
Digitally colored confocal microscopy image of “flowers” (top), made by layering precipitates grown under iterative conditions, and fluorescent image (bottom).
Confocal microscopy images of flowerlike structures.
Credit: Science
Digitally colored confocal microscopy image of “flowers” (top), made by layering precipitates grown under iterative conditions, and fluorescent image (bottom).

Beachcombers who gather seashells and corals know just how good nature is at building intricate structures. Chemists have rarely achieved similar prowess. But by mimicking how the environment shapes biological materials, a team at Harvard University has sculpted tiny, beautiful flowerlike structures (Science 2013, DOI: 10.1126/science.1234621). In the future, the work might be adapted to craft patterned surfaces for catalysis and other applications.

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Credit: Courtesy of Wim Noorduin
“The first time we looked at our slides with a good microscope, I coincidentally focused on a roselike structure,” Noorduin says. This is a digitally colored SEM image; “flower” is about 100 μm tall.
Digitally colored SEM image of flowerlike structure made from Ba-Si solution.
Credit: Courtesy of Wim Noorduin
“The first time we looked at our slides with a good microscope, I coincidentally focused on a roselike structure,” Noorduin says. This is a digitally colored SEM image; “flower” is about 100 μm tall.
[+]Enlarge
Credit: Courtesy of Laura Hendriks & Wim Noorduin
These “flowers” were formed in a three-step process, using SrCO3 instead of BaCO3. This is a digitally colored SEM image.
This false colored SEM image of a complex micro bouquet was made from inorganic Ba-Si solution.
Credit: Courtesy of Laura Hendriks & Wim Noorduin
These “flowers” were formed in a three-step process, using SrCO3 instead of BaCO3. This is a digitally colored SEM image.

In nature, developing shells can change patterns abruptly—from dots to wavy lines, for instance. Changes in temperature, pH, or other factors affect patterns while the shell grows, says postdoc Wim L. Noorduin, first author of the new study. So Noorduin, Alison Grinthal, Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan, and Joanna Aizenberg set out to apply this concept in the lab.

Their setup was deceptively simple: a glass microscope slide, a solution of barium chloride and sodium silicate in water, and a beaker covered with a petri dish. The two compounds aren’t used by living things, but others have shown they can generate lifelike shapes. Two different minerals—SiO2 and BaCO3—precipitate from that solution onto the slide. By moving slides from one pH or temperature condition to another as the minerals grew on them, the team sculpted the substances into flowers. Some conditions led to stemlike spirals, others to flowerlike bulbs.

Pupa Gilbert, who studies biominerals at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, marvels at their results. “They just open and close the beaker,” adding pulses of CO2 from air, she says. “Yet the structures produced are stupendously complex.”

The method doesn’t make structures uniform enough to use as catalytic materials, Noorduin says. The team is exploring microfluidics to attain that reproducibility. For now, Noorduin enjoys gazing at his handiwork under an electron microscope. “It’s amazing—like diving in the ocean,” he says. “You can really get lost.”

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