SÍLICE DE LAS ALGAS DIATOMEAS (CLASE Bacillariophyceae) COMO MATERIAL COMPLEJO Y SU IMPORTANCIA NANOTECNOLÓGICA

Abstract

The presence of mineral deposition is very common in microorganisms, plants, mushrooms and mammals. This organisms are an excellent natural model to study the relation between the principal parts involved in the process, the biopolymeric and mineral phases. The importance of this kind of studies is the relation with nanotechnology. Being a relatively new science, nanotechnology studies the chemical and physical phenomena is a scale under the 500 nanometers. When the system under study has a biological significance, with active biologic structures, the term bionanotechnology is used. This is the case of the study of the biomineralization in diatomeas seaweed. Due to the difficulty in the production of controlled micro and nanostructures containing silica (SiO2), this study is relevant. The possible technological applications of this kind of crystals are drug liberation structures, photovoltaic cells and high performance ceramic materials. Factors that affect the geometry, mechanical and physicochemical properties are poorly understood, whereby this kind of studies are important. Understanding the interactions and processes involved in the production of biological crystals could yield to a rational production of new and sophisticated nanostructured material with a broad application in nanotechnology (hybrid semiconductors), biology and biomedicime (biomaterials, drug liberation structures). In the work we establish a “bottom up” draft of the synthesis of “biosilica” by diatomeas emphasizing the impact in nanotechnology.