Nacre biocrystal thermal behavior

Xavier Bourrat (1) , Loic Francke (2) , Evelyne Lopez (3) , Marthe Rousseau (3) , Philippe Stempflé (4) , Martine Angellier (1) , Patrick Albéric (1)

1 ISTO - Institut des Sciences de la Terre d'Orléans
2 Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie et Physique
3 BOME - Biologie des organismes marins et écosystèmes
4 LGP - Laboratoire Génie de Production

The thermal behaviour of Pinctada margaritifera nacre was studied at different temperatures by means of thermal gravimetric, thermo-mechanical and Rock-Eval analyses. From the mechanical point of view nacre exhibited a complete reversible behaviour up to 230 °C. The bio-aragonite allotrope was seen to be as stable as the abiotic aragonite up to 470–500 °C. It was also evidenced that the organic phase was keeping cracking oxygen functions at temperatures as high as 650 °C. Nacre thermal behaviour could be described following four distinctive stages and discussed in comparison with previous data obtained in oxidative conditions.

Domains: Continental interfaces, environment

Xavier Bourrat, Loic Francke, Evelyne Lopez, Marthe Rousseau, Philippe Stempflé, et al.. Nacre biocrystal thermal behavior. CrystEngComm, 2007, 9, pp.1205-1208. ⟨10.1039/b709388h⟩. ⟨insu-00185543⟩