Controlling and engineering precipitation patterns.

Controlling and engineering chemical structures are the most important scientific challenges in material science. Precipitation patterns from ions or nanoparticles are promising candidates for designing bulk structure for catalysis, energy production, storage, and electronics. There are only a few procedures and techniques to control precipitation (Liesegang) patterns in gel media (e.g., using an electric field, varying the initial concentration of the electrolytes). However, those methods provide just a limited degree of freedom. Here, we provide a robust and transparent way to control and engineer Liesegang patterns by varying gel concentration and inducing impurity by addition of gelatin to agarose gel. Using this experimental method, different precipitation structures can be obtained with different width and spatial distribution of the formed bands. A new variant of a sol-coagulation model was developed to describe and understand the effect of the gel concentration and impurities on Liesegang pattern formation.