Calcium carbonate polymorph control using droplet-based microfluidics

Calcium carbonate (CaCO3) is one of the most abundant minerals and of high importance in many areas of science including global CO2 exchange, industrial water treatment energy storage, and the formation of shells and skeletons. Industrially, calcium carbonate is also used in the production of cement, glasses, paints, plastics, rubbers, ceramics, and steel, as well as being a key material in oil refining and iron ore purification. CaCO3 displays a complex polymorphic behaviour which, despite numerous experiments, remains poorly characterised. In this paper, we report the use of a segmented-flow microfluidic reactor for the controlled precipitation of calcium carbonate and compare the resulting crystal properties with those obtained using both continuous flow microfluidic reactors and conventional bulk methods. Through combination of equal volumes of equimolar aqueous solutions of calcium chloride and sodium carbonate on the picoliter scale, it was possible to achieve excellent definition of both crystal size and size distribution. Furthermore, highly reproducible control over crystal polymorph could be realised, such that pure calcite, pure vaterite, or a mixture of calcite and vaterite could be precipitated depending on the reaction conditions and droplet-volumes employed. In contrast, the crystals precipitated in the continuous flow and bulk systems comprised of a mixture of calcite and vaterite and exhibited a broad distribution of sizes for all reaction conditions investigated. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3683162]