Biomimetic mineral self-organization from silica-rich spring waters

Biomimetic mineral self-organization from silica-rich spring waters

Garcia-Ruiz, J. M.; Nakouzi, E.; Kotopoulou, E.; Tamborrino, L.; Steinbock, O., Biomimetic mineral self-organization from silica-rich spring waters. Sci Adv 2017, 3 (3). Download paper. Purely inorganic reactions of silica, metal carbonates, and metal hydroxides can produce self-organized complex structures that mimic the texture of biominerals, the morphology of primitive organisms, and that catalyze prebiotic reactions. To date, these fascinating structures have only been synthesized using model solutions. We report that mineral self-assembly can be…

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Precipitation and Crystallization Kinetics in Silica Gardens

Precipitation and Crystallization Kinetics in Silica Gardens

Glaab, F.; Rieder, J.; Klein, R.; Choquesillo-Lazarte, D.; Melero-Garcia, E.; Garcia-Ruiz, J. M.; Kunz, W.; Kellermeier, M., Precipitation and Crystallization Kinetics in Silica Gardens. Chemphyschem 2017, 18 (4), 338-345. Download paper. Silica gardens are extraordinary plant‐like structures resulting from the complex interplay of relatively simple inorganic components. Recent work has highlighted that macroscopic self‐assembly is accompanied by the spontaneous formation of considerable chemical gradients, which induce a cascade of coupled dissolution, diffusion, and precipitation processes…

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Summary of main achievements (August 2014-January 2017)

Summary of main achievements (August 2014-January 2017)

Our project is based on the interaction of two main research lines: 1) The fundamental understanding of the phenomenon of mineral self-assembly and, 2) Its relevance to reveal the transition from non-life to life during the Early Earth. We have made the following progress in both fields: Successful field trips to Aqua de Ney alkaline waters (California), Oman ophiolites and their alkaline springs, Dallol hydrothermal system in Ethiopia, and alkaline lakes in the Southern Rift…

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PROMETHEUS Meeting 2017

PROMETHEUS Meeting 2017

From left to right, upper row: Mark van Zuilen, Juanma García Ruiz, Werner Kunz, Luis Gonzalez Ramirez, Cristobal Verdugo, Manolis Giampouras, Alfonso García Caballero, Jaime Gómez, Fermin Otálora, Joaquin Criado, Julian Opel, Marco Montalti, Isaac Rodríguez and Joti Rouillard. Lower row: Jeannette Manzi, Maritza Iveth, Kevin Hagmann, Electra Kotopoulou, Francisca Espinosa. Not in the picture, but also attended the meeting were Angels Canals, Duane Choquesillo, Yadav Brijbhushan, Angel Orte, Jose Manuel Domínguez and Lionel Cervera….

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Gan Zhang

Gan Zhang

I am a chemist from China. I joined the Prof. Juan Manuel García Ruiz’s group in 2010 when I started the master and PhD study in Crystallization and Crystallography, and received the PhD title in 2015. My research in the group towards the polymorphic and morphological control of the crystallization of calcium carbonate as well as the hydrate forms in alkaline silica-rich media, to explore the morphogenetic mechanism of silica biomorphs. My work is strongly…

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Julian Opel

Julian Opel

University of Konstanz, started in 2015. Julian Opel is a German PhD student at the University of Konstanz (Germany) in the group of Prof. Helmut Cölfen. He got his M. Sc. in chemistry in 2015. In his Master thesis, he investigated new strategies to functionalize silica-biomorphs with various functional groups, organic molecules and inorganic nano particles to lern more about the inner structure of biomorphs and to turn these fascinating structures into a functional material….

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Manolis Giampouras

Manolis Giampouras

University of Granada, started 2015. Manolis Giampouras is a Greek PhD student at the University of Granada (Spain). He got his BSc degree in Geology and Geo-environment at the University of Athens (Greece), where he elaborated on mineral texture analysis of a hydrothermal ore deposit (Rhodope, NE Greece). He holds an MSc degree from the University of Newcastle (UK) focused on applied geology, geochemistry and environmental sciences. For his MSc thesis, he specialized in biogeochemical processes…

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Jeannette Manzi

Jeannette Manzi

We would like to congratulate Jeannette Manzi on the achievement of her PhD thesis entitled “Mapping pH in self-assembled inorganic structures by fluorescence microscopy” (supervised by Prof. Marco Montalti and Prof. Aldo Roda), which has been excellently defended on the 9th of May 2018 at department of Industrial Chemistry “Toso Montanari” of Bologna. Her outstanding work has received the marks of 1) excellent for the originality and the arguments treated; and 2) really good for…

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Kevin Hagmann

Kevin Hagmann

University of Granada, started 2017. Kevin Hagmann is a German PhD student at the CSIC-University of Granada. He holds a Bachelor and Masters degree in Chemistry which he obtained at the University of Regensburg, Germany. In his Bachelor research he focused on reaction pathways of pentaphosphaferrocences in organometallic chemistry as well as the functionalization of nanoparticles for organic synthesis. For his Masters degree he specialized in physical, inorganic and analytical chemistry. In his Master thesis…

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Local pH oscillations witness autocatalytic self-organization of biomorphic nanostructures

Local pH oscillations witness autocatalytic self-organization of biomorphic nanostructures

M. Montalti, G. Zhang, D. Genovese, J. Morales, M. Kellermeier & J.M. García-Ruiz, Nat Commun. 2017 Feb 16;8:14427. Download paper. Bottom-up self-assembly of simple molecular compounds is a prime pathway to complex materials with interesting structures and functions. Coupled reaction systems are known to spontaneously produce highly ordered patterns, so far observed in soft matter. Here we show that similar phenomena can occur during silica-carbonate crystallization, the emerging order being preserved. The resulting materials, called…

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