Alcohol-assisted vaterite nanoparticles production from Palimanan natural limestone via carbonation method

Vaterite, one of the calcium carbonate polymorphs, has been widely used as a bone-filling material, an efficient template for drug delivery, and pulp capping. However, vaterite is thermodynamically unstable and easily transformed into more stable polymorphs, namely calcite and aragonite. Carbonation is one common method to produce vaterite, yet it is hard to produce pure vaterite. In the present study, water and different types of alcohol (methanol, ethanol, 2-propanol, 1-butanol, 1-propanol) were employed as solvents to synthesize high-purity nanovaterite. Interestingly, only methanol produced pure vaterite with crystallite and particle sizes of 16.24 and 2327 nm, respectively. While ethanol produced a mixture of vaterite and calcite, other solvents produced pure calcites with different sizes. For the first time, methanol solvent assisted vaterite production from Palimanan`s natural limestone. The prepared vaterite from natural limestone exhibited a large pore size (43.30 nm) with crystallite and particle sizes of 18.06 and 1202 nm, respectively.