Bioinspired synthesis of new silica structuresElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Methods, EDS for specimens in Fig. 2c and Fig. 2b; additional SEM and TEM of silica. See http://www.rsc.org/suppdata/cc/b3/b302056h/

Abstract

Silicon and oxygen are the two most abundant elements in the Earth's crust but despite the vast scientific literature on crystalline and amorphous silica, new chemistries, structures and applications continue to be discovered for compounds formed from these elements--thus we present here for the first time the formation of new amorphous silica structures that were uniquely synthesized by a bioinspired synthetic system.