Chiral Biomineral Structures: Synthesis and Inspiring Functional Materials.

Biominerals with complex hierarchical structures present important roles, such as defense, predation, or communication, which spurs the scientists to design biomimetic strategies and mimic this microstructure. This review mainly focuses on the synthesized strategies of chiral biominerals and the inspirations in the design of the functional materials. Additive-assisted and template-oriented strategies can control mineral growth through intermolecular interactions, which triggers the chirality transfer from the molecular level to the macroscopic scale. Gel-based limited space reduces the solute diffusion rate and prompts the chiral morphology or helical structure evolution. These strategies play a synergetic role in the mineralization process. This growth process is commonly dominated by the nonclassical routes, and understanding this evolved mechanism is significant for the materials synthesis. The superior performance of the chiral minerals provides sufficient inspiration for materials manufacturing. The twisted layered structure design enhances the rigidity and toughness significantly, which provides a new sight in the hard materials preparation. Chirality arrangement displays the optical characteristic, which is expected to be applied in the sensing. Finally, further directions from mechanisms, and design to production are given.