Calcium carbonate, one of the most abundant biominerals is often sculpted by nature into structures with exceptional mechanical properties at ambient conditions For this effect, it is well known that nature employs organic additives that can precisely control and direct the mineralization process , 3 There is not only a significant interest to understand the mechanism of biomineralization involving these organic matrices that nature employs, but also to produce organic materials that can mimic these organic matrices in order to produce organic- inorganic hybrid materials , 4 Shell cross-linked nanoparticles (SCKs)5- 8are mechanically robust polymeric micelles, for which the acidic shell regions are found to interact electrostatically with other ionic molecular and macromolecular aggregates present in their environment.9-12 SCKs prepared in water from poly(acrylic acid-b-styrene) (PAA-b-PS) will result in acrylic acid functionalities in the shell region, that can potentially mimic the charged amino acid residues of acidic macromolecules that are employed by nature , 4, 13In this work, we report the influence of SCKs and micellar aggregates in the formation of CaCO3 crystals.
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