Crystallization study and morphology behaviour of calcium carbonate crystals in aqueous Surfactant - Pluronics ® prototype

A facile procedure to fabricate the hydrophobic surfaces of calcium carbonate-polymer composites has been well described. Nano-sized highly ordered CaCO3 clusters i.e. calcite/vaterite have been synthesized by simple precipitation in the presence of template made of cationic surfactant: cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) and different non-ionic amphiphilic triblock copolymers comprising of PEO–PPO–PEO units: F98 and F127 commercially known as Pluronics ® or Synperonics ® or Poloxamers. The morphology of these nano-composites so formed was characterized in detail using spectroscopy, microscopy, diffraction, and scattering techniques. It was found that the surfactant-polymer prototype turned out to be an important parameter to tune and understand the shapecontrolled morphology and crystallization in precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC). Our diffraction pattern depicted the presence of calcite/vaterite, while the microscopic investigations indicated the bunch/clusters of calcite (nano-flakes) arranged in stacks which could be attributed to the attractive hydrophobic interaction between the alkyl group of cationic surfactant and -PPO unit of the block copolymer. Similar assumptions were inferred by structural optimization using Gauss View 5.0.9. The scattering measurements described the polydispersity of nano-aggregates based on the scattering intensity. Results expounded the growth mechanism of CaCO3 crystals to be a step-by-step build process with respect to the polarity. © 2017 Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. on behalf of Brazilian Metallurgical, Materials and Mining Association. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] (K. Kuperkar). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmrt.2017.10.005 2238-7854/© 2017 Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. on behalf of Brazilian Metallurgical, Materials and Mining Association. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Document downloaded from http://www.elsevier.es, day 10/02/2018. This copy is for personal use. Any transmission of this document by any media or format is strictly prohibited.