Influence of pyruvic acid and UV radiation on the morphology of Silica-carbonate crystalline biomorphs

Abstract

In this work we report the effect of introducing pyruvic acid (PA) in the growing process of silica-carbonate biomorphs. Gas-diffusion and single-phase methods were performed, and different concentrations of pyruvic acid were tested. Moreover, influence of UV radiation on the morphogenesis of the samples was analyzed. Since PA decomposes in CO 2 and other compounds under UV radiation, here we demonstrate that PA decomposition enables a source of carbonate ions to induce the precipitation of silica-carbonate biomorphs in absence of environmental CO 2 . We also found that high concentrations [0.5 M] of PA inhibit the formation of biomorphs, while lower concentrations [0.01 M] results in common life-like structures. However [0.1 M] of PA provokes the precipitation of carbonates of alkaline earth metals in non-usual crystalline habits, i.e., semi-spherical smoothed shapes sized between 10 and 70 µm and homogeneously growth on a glass substrate.