Geomimetic Materials: Development of Second-Generation Apatites for Environmental Remediation, Recycling and Catalysis

Importance
This on-going project was conceived to design, fabricate and validate the performance of novel apatite-based nanocomposite as materials to capture, immobilise, destroy, detect and sterilise inorganic and organic wastes. This will be achieved through:

• The integration of basic theoretical and strategic experimental studies necessary to design and synthesise new apatites chemistries with specific ion-exchange and catalytic properties; and
• The delivery of these new apatite materials in technologically novel forms providing high mass transfer and specific surface reactivity.

Although apatites are an industrially important group of materials with applications in catalysis, environmental remediation, bone replacement and ceramic membranes amongst others it is only recently that CARE researchers have published a collation of crystallographic data systematising the whole range of chemistries and compositions (White & Dong, 2003). Moreover, this study represents the first attempt to place the apatite varieties in the context of the entire structure family, with a view to understanding their crystallographic derivation from simpler structures. By taking this approach fundamentally new insights into the chemical nature of apatites for specific applications became apparent and systematic studies are now underway to develop these materials as ecomaterials (Dong et al., 2002; Dong et al, 2003a,b,c,d).

Specific advances that will deliver technological breakthroughs in the coming 3 years include: