Microstructures in the Formation of Chemical Gardens

摘要

Chemical gardens are biomimetic plantlike growths formed by a mixture of salts which precipitate by a combination of convection forced by osmosis, free convection and chemical reactions. Chemical gardens may be implicated in other phenomena of industrial interest which involve precipitation across a colloidal gel membrane that separates two different aqueous solutions, for example, in cement technology and metal corrosion processes. However, the variation in chemical composition, morphology and mechanical properties of the different surfaces of these formations is not well known. Several salts in different concentrations and conditions have been explored under terrestrial gravity and microgravity. The chemical garden structures have been characterised by morphology analysis, scanning electron microscopy, chemical analysis and X-ray diffraction, correlating these data with the biomimetic growth and the physical-chemical nanoprocesses involved in it. This approach may also be useful for the analysis of biomaterials with interesting biomechanical properties.