Unlocking the mysterious polytypic features within vaterite CaCO₃.

ABSTRACT: Calcium carbonate (CaCO₃), the most abundant biogenic mineral on earth, plays a crucial role in various fields such as hydrosphere, biosphere, and climate regulation. Of the four polymorphs, calcite, aragonite, vaterite, and amorphous CaCO₃, vaterite is the most enigmatic one due to an ongoing debate regarding its structure that has persisted for nearly a century. In this work, based on systematic transmission electron microscopy characterizations, crystallographic analysis and machine learning aided molecular dynamics simulations with ab initio accuracy, we reveal that vaterite can be regarded as a polytypic structure. The basic phase has a monoclinic lattice possessing pseudohexagonal symmetry. Direct imaging and atomic-scale simulations provide evidence that a sing

SUBMITTER: San X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10687017 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature