INVESTIGATING THE ROLE OF BIOMOLECULE/MINERAL INTERACTIONS VIA CALCITE AND CELESTITE MODEL SYSTEMS

In this research, we use calcite and celestite inorganic model systems to better understand biological crystallization in the presence of organic biomolecules. Our goal is to understand what happens when biomolecules occlude into crystals and how that affects the structural organization. Specifically, we focus on the role the respective biomolecule chemistry plays in regulating the incorporation into a crystal. To visualize and characterize the biomolecule/mineral role in crystallization, a variety of techniques were used to image and analyze the respective model systems. The synthesized single crystals were characterized by light microscopy (LM). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and field-emission SEM (FE-SEM) were used to examine the morphology of the crystals. Structural and topographical analyses were carried out using atomic force microscopy (AFM). Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and confocal Raman microscopy were both used to characterize functional groups, where Raman spectroscopic mappings provided the region-specific chemical composition of the crystal.