Berlin 2018 – scientific programme

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MM: Fachverband Metall- und Materialphysik

MM 32: Microstructure and Phase Transformations

MM 32.3: Talk

Wednesday, March 14, 2018, 10:45–11:00, TC 010

Evolution of the Prismatic Ultrastructure in Molluscan Shells via Hierarchical Grain Boundary Motion — •Dana Zöllner and Igor Zlotnikov — B CUBE Center for Molecular Bioengineering, TU Dresden, Arnoldstr. 18, 01307 Dresden, GERMANY

Biomineralization of complex composite architectures comprising the shells of molluscs proceeds via self-assembly in accordance with thermodynamic boundary conditions set by an organic macromolecular framework that is regulated by the organism. Hence, the formation of these ultrastructures can be reproduced using the analytical backbone of various physical theories that are commonly employed to express the growth of manmade materials. In this work, we develop an analytical framework for a quantitative study of the process of shell morphogenesis. The method is based on Monte Carlo simulations of grain boundary motion that, classically, were developed to study coarsening of polycrystalline metals. By employing this approach, we fully reconstruct the growth process of the two-level hierarchical prismatic morphology found in the shell of the mollusc Pinctada nigra. Spatial data on the latter was obtained using synchrotron-based microtomography imaging at beamline (ID19) at ESRF. The proposed framework is a fundamentally novel approach to study the structural regulation during biomineralization. It has the capacity to evaluate physical parameters, set by the organism, that are responsible for mineralized tissue morphogenesis in time and in space. Besides providing key insights into the fields of biomineralization, these parameters are pivotal to the fields of biomimicry, bio-inspiration and bottom-up materials synthesis.