Synthesis of CaCO3 crystals using hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose hydrogel as template

Calcium carbonate crystallization was performed in hydrogel of hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose (HPMC). Results showed that the polyhydroxy functionalities in HPMC gel network facilitated the nucleation of aragonite which was not found in experiment without HPMC hydrogel and in experiment using methylcellulose (MC) hydrogel as template. On the other hand, due to the unique assembly of the macromolecules in HPMC hydrogel network, which was different from other hydrogels used in some previous reports, particular crystal morphology, corncob-like CaCO_3, was obtained for the first time.