High Mechanical Strength Alloy-like Minerals Prepared by Inorganic Ionic Co-cross-linking

Zaiqiang Ma; Kangren Kong; Yu Yin; Zhengxi Guo; Xiaoming Ma; Qingyun Lin; Jie Wang; Yinlin Shen; Xingyu Lu; Xurong Xu; Xueqian Kong; Zhaoming Liu; Ruikang Tang

doi:10.1002/adma.202308017

High Mechanical Strength Alloy-like Minerals Prepared by Inorganic Ionic Co-cross-linking

Adv Mater. 2024 Jan;36(3):e2308017. doi: 10.1002/adma.202308017. Epub 2023 Dec 6.

Authors

Zaiqiang Ma¹, Kangren Kong¹, Yu Yin¹, Zhengxi Guo¹, Xiaoming Ma¹, Qingyun Lin², Jie Wang¹, Yinlin Shen¹, Xingyu Lu³, Xurong Xu⁴, Xueqian Kong^{1

5}, Zhaoming Liu^{1

6}, Ruikang Tang^{1

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
² Center of Electron Microscopy, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Precise Synthesis of Functional Molecules of Zhejiang Province, Instrumentation and Service Centre for Molecular Sciences, Westlake University, Hangzhou, 310024, China.
⁴ Qiushi Academy for Advanced Studies, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China.
⁵ Institute of Translational Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Silicon and Advanced Semiconductor Materials, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China.

PMID: 38009645
DOI: 10.1002/adma.202308017

Abstract

Alloys often combine different metals to generate superior mechanical properties. However, it is challenging to prepare high mechanical strength minerals with similar strategies. Using calcium carbonate (CaC) and calcium phosphate (CaP) as examples, this work synthesizes a group of compounds with the chemical formulas Ca(CO₃ )_x (PO₄ )_2(1- _x _)/3 (0 < x < 1, CaCPs) by cross-linking ionic oligomers. Unlike mixtures, these CaCPs exhibit a single temperature for the phase transition from amorphous to crystallized CaC (calcite) and CaP (hydroxyapatite). By heat-induced synchronous crystallization, dual-phase CaC/CaP with continuous crystallized boundaries are resembled to alloy-like minerals (ALMs). The mechanical properties of the ALMs are adjusted by tailoring their chemical compositions to reach a hardness of 5.6 GPa, which exceed those of control calcite and hydroxyapatite samples by 430% and 260%, respectively. This strategy expands the chemical scope of inorganic materials and holds promise for preparing high-performance minerals.

Keywords: alloy-like minerals; compound; ionic oligomers; mechanical strength; phase transition.

Abstract

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