Polymers designed to control nucleation and growth of inorganic crystals from aqueous media

Water soluble graft polymers prepared by copolymerization of either methacrylic acid (MAA) or vinylsulfonic acid (VS) with α‐methoxy‐ω‐methacroyl‐oligo(oxyethylene)s (PEO_n‐MA) serve to control nucleation and crystal growth during precipitation of inorganic crystals from aqueous media. Precipitation of zinc oxide crystals (‘zincite’) is used as example for such mineralization processes. Homogeneous and narrow crystal size distributions are obtained in presence of ppm‐amounts of graft copolymers. Copolymer is incorporated into the crystals demonstrated by using latex particles with ‐CO₂H‐group rich surfaces as controlling additives. Incorporation of these particles leads to single crystals with pores of the size of the particles (‘Swiss cheese’ morphologies).