Mesoporous calcite by polymer templating

Layered calcite crystals with internal 10-50 nm pores are precipitated from aqueous solution containing a polymer-peptide conjugate that aggregates into pore-forming templates. The zwitterionic peptide sequence behaves as the binding block of a double-hydrophilic block copolymer, facilitating templating, nucleation inhibition, and stabilization of amorphous precursor particles.