Influence of Pyruvic Acid and UV Radiation on the Morphology of Silica-carbonate Crystalline Biomorphs

In this work we report the effect of introducing pyruvic acid (PA) in the growing process of silica-carbonate biomorphs. Gas-diffusion and single-phase methods were performed, and different concentrations of pyruvic acid were tested. Moreover, influence of UV radiation on the morphogenesis of the samples was analyzed. Since PA decomposes in CO2 and other compounds under UV radiation, here we demonstrate that PA decomposition enables a source of carbonate ions to induce the precipitation of silica-carbonate biomorphs in absence of environmental CO2. We also found that high concentrations [0.5 M] of PA inhibit the formation of biomorphs, while lower concentrations [0.01 M] results in common life-like structures. However [0.1 M] of PA provokes the precipitation of carbonates of alkaline earth metals in non-usual crystalline habits, i.e., semi-spherical smoothed shapes sized between 10 and 70 mu m and homogeneously growth on a glass substrate.