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The effect of magnesium substitution on the hardness of synthetic and biogenic calcite

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An Erratum to this article was published on 01 March 2013

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Abstract

Biogenic minerals often contain inorganic and organic impurities that are believed to harden and toughen the material. However, because of the complexity of these systems, it is difficult to deconvolute the effect of each of these impurities on the hardness of the material. We have created single-crystal samples with a range of magnesium concentrations and measured their hardness while controlling for orientation. We find that hardness increases linearly with magnesium content and that magnesium impurities could account for ∼20% of the increased hardness in biogenic calcite from the mollusk Atrina rigida when compared with pure geologic calcite.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge support from NSF (DMR 0845212), the J.D. Watson Investigator Program (NYSTAR Contract No. C050017), the GI Bill (Chapter 33), and Hysitron Inc. We also acknowledge the Cornell Center for Materials Research (CCMR), a Materials Research Science and Engineering Center of the National Science Foundation (DMR 1120296), for both research support and use of the Electron Microscopy facility. We would also like to thank John Hunt for WDS measurements and Benjamin Shulman for help with sample preparation. Supporting Information is available online from MRS Communications or from the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 14853, USA

    Miki E. Kunitake, Shefford P. Baker & Lara A. Estroff

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  1. Miki E. Kunitake
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  2. Shefford P. Baker
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  3. Lara A. Estroff
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Correspondence to Shefford P. Baker.

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For supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2012.20

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Kunitake, M.E., Baker, S.P. & Estroff, L.A. The effect of magnesium substitution on the hardness of synthetic and biogenic calcite. MRS Communications 2, 113–116 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2012.20

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