Green Engineering of Silicon and Titanium Dioxide Architectures and Realizing Downstream Applications

Abstract

Biomineralization has long been a source of inspiration and frustration for researchers in a wide variety of disciplines from ecologists and dental practitioners to materials scientists. An amazing variety of organisms have the capacity to produce inorganic mineral complexes through biomineralization. In this context, different organisms use proteins, peptides, and polysaccharides as templates to control the nucleation, growth, and morphology of structures containing minerals and metals. Due to lack of clarity in the field, distinctions are provided between the various biomineralization processes as Type I, II, and III biomineralization. Synthetic biomineralization is an emerging field in which these processes are applied to unnatural substrates to create useful inorganic materials with applications in a variety of fields. A comprehensive overview of silica and titanium oxide biomineralization is given, covering the major achievements this sub-field has attained since its emergence. The ground-breaking discoveries are focused based on the templating agent used and the mechanisms that are proposed in the field are discussed. Synthetic biomineralization are led, which are more recently demonstrated to have feasible applications in energy, electronics, construction, and biotechnology. These possibilities are discussed alongside prospects based on the current trend of research in the field.