Dissolution at the Nanoscale:Self-Preservation of Biominerals

摘要

Despite the complicated hierarchical structures of natural materials such as shells,bones,and teeth,their basic building blocks are generally in the nanometer size range to ensure optimum physical and biological functions.Herein we reveal that this nanostructural optimization also confers on the biomaterials remarkable characteristics of dynamic preservation.Generally,dissolution of minerals is regarded as a spontaneous reaction in which all the solid phase can be dissolved in undersaturated solutions.However,it has been found that demineralization reactions actually involve par-ticle-size-dependent critical conditions of energetic control at the molecular level.