title: Protein biomineralized nanoporous inorganic mesocrystals with tunable hierarchical nanostructures.
abstract: Mesocrystals with the symmetry defying morphologies and highly ordered superstructures composed of primary units are of particular interest, but the fabrication has proved extremely challenging. A novel strategy based on biomineralization approach for the synthesis of hematite mesocrystals is developed by using silk fibroin as a biotemplate. The resultant hematite mesocrystals are uniform, highly crystalline, and porous nanostructures with tunable size and morphologies by simply varying the concentration of the silk fibroin and iron(III) chloride in this biomineralization system. In particular, we demonstrate a complex mesoscale biomineralization process induced by the silk fibroin for the formation of hematite mesocrystals. This biomimetic strategy features precisely tunable, high efficiency, and low-cost and opens up an avenue to access new novel functional mesocrystals with hierarchical structures in various practical applications.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Department of Macromolecular Science and Laboratory of Advanced Materials and §Department of Chemistry and Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Fudan University , Shanghai, 200433, P. R. China.
authors.forename: Xiang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Fei
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Zhengzhong
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Seeger
authors.forename: Dongyuan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen