Deconstructing biomineralization codes: a high throughput microfluidic material genome strategy for calcium carbonate...

Material genomic engineering elucidates the regulatory mechanisms of multicomponent effects on material properties through high-throughput screening technologies, providing new insights for the directional design of materials. The cooperative effects of multiple additives in the crystallization of CaCO3 mimics the organisms to regulate crystallization to achieve complex crystal morphologies in nature. To solve the problem of rapid and large-scale additive screening problem in morphology control of biominerals, a High-Throughput Crystallization Screening (HTCS) microfluidic chip was developed. This HTCS chip makes use of the well-defined concentration gradient of multiple additives and permeability of PDMS thin films to induce crystallization by ammonium carbonate. Mg²⁺, citrate, and poly (sodium styrenesulfonate) were systematically selected to represent inorganic ions, small molecules, and macromolecules respectively, simulating biomineralization processes influenced by both ionic and macromolecular components. The results demonstrate that morphological evolution exhibits continuous, regular transitions with single additive concentration gradients. When subjected to combined additives, the crystal morphologies are observed to manifest as superpositions of individual additive. Finally, it is successfully applied to guide CaCO3 crystallization with desired morphology. The morphological consistency between HTCS chip and bulk systems is confirmed, validating the developed high-throughput platform as an effective tool for accelerated additive screening and synthesis protocol optimization in biomimetic crystallization processes.