The lack of experimental data on the dynamics of aspartic acid species in water for its range of protonation states and the details of their atomic-level interaction with aqueous calcium carbonate species is a driver for accurate force field development. A classical model that is consistent with the few pieces of experimental data available and with first principles calculations has been developed. The complex dynamics of the aspartate anions relevant to biomineralization and calcium carbonate crystal growth has been explored in water, providing a quantitative description of solvation structure and free energies, including conformational free energy profiles and pairing free energies. The model has been used to probe the structure and dynamics of aqueous calcium aspartate homo- and hetero-chiral clusters, confirming their unlikelihood due to weak and water-mediated interactions. This supports the hypothesis that the formation of such clusters, observed while growing vaterite in the presence of acidic chiral amino acids, is favoured by the presence of the crystal surface.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/d3cp04674e | DOI Listing |
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int
January 2025
Council for Geoscience, Private Bag X112, Pretoria, 0001, South Africa.
One-step high-pressure and high-temperature direct aqueous mineral carbonation of tailings derived from mining of Platinum Group Metals in South Africa requires a fundamental understanding of the reactivity of the most dominant mineral phases, i.e. pyroxene and plagioclase (66 wt.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPolymers (Basel)
January 2025
Department of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering, Aalto University, 02150 Espoo, Finland.
Alginate hydrogels have gathered significant attention in biomedical engineering due to their remarkable biocompatibility, biodegradability, and ability to encapsulate cells and bioactive molecules, but much less has been reported on the kinetics of gelation. Scarce experimental data are available on cross-linked alginates (AL) with bioactive components. The present study addressed a novel method for defining the crosslinking mechanism using rheological measurements for aqueous mixtures of AL and calcium chloride (CaCl) with the presence of hydroxyapatite (HAp) as filler particles.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFoods
January 2025
Department of Animal Science, Food and Nutrition, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 29122 Piacenza, Italy.
Grana Padano (GP) is an Italian hard cooked cheese characterized by a long ripening process and high protein and Ca contents. After in vitro static simulated gastrointestinal digestion, GP digest contained caseinophosphopeptides that were 6 to 24 amino acids in length, including tri-phosphorylated species incorporating the pSer-pSer-pSer-Glu-Glu cluster. Using rat ileum tissue, the digest was used to assess Ca absorption ex vivo, which showed significantly better results for the GP digest in comparison to the CaCO aqueous solution.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Environ Sci (China)
July 2025
Key Laboratory of Pollution Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China.
Siderite tailings is a potentially cost-free iron (Fe) source for arsenic (As) fixation in hazardous arsenic-calcium residues (ACR) as stable scorodite. In this study, a pure siderite reagent was employed to investigate the mechanism and optimal conditions for As fixation in ACR via scorodite formation, while the waste siderite tailings were used to further demonstrate the cotreatment method. The cotreatment method starts with an introduction of sulfuric acid to the ACR for As extraction and gypsum precipitation, and is followed by the addition of HO to oxidize As(III) in the extraction solutions and finalized by adding siderite with continuous air injection for scorodite formation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFACS Biomater Sci Eng
January 2025
CEA, DES, ISEC, DPME, SEME, University of Montpellier, Marcoule, Bagnols-sur-Cèze F-30207, France.
Although models have been proposed to explain the mechanisms of bioglass (BG) dissolution and subsequent calcium phosphate (CaP) mineralization, open questions remain. The processes in which phase transition occurs in aqueous solutions and their dynamics remain underexplored partly because traditional instruments/techniques do not allow for direct observations at the adequate time and length scales at which such phase transformations occur. For instance, given the crucial role of the silica gel in CaP formation during BG dissolution, uncertainty exists about how such a silica gel forms on the BG surface.
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