Energetics of the adsorption of ethanol on calcite nanoparticles
(Phys.org)—Biomineralization, oil recovery, textiles, and catalysis all rely on organic-inorganic interactions with calcite, the most common polymorph of CaCO3. Over the last five years, there has been substantial research discussing qualitative properties of organics adsorbed onto calcite, but little by way of quantitatively determining the thermodynamic interaction between an organic adsorbate and calcite. Di Wu and Alexandra Navrotsky of the University of California, Davis investigated the thermodynamics of ethanol adsorption onto various calcite nanoparticles in an effort to elucidate the organic-inorganic interface and find general properties that could apply to more complex systems. Their work appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.