Microscopic Evidence for Liquid-Liquid Separation in Supersaturated CaCO ₃ Solutions

Recent experimental observations of the onset of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) mineralization suggest the emergence of a population of clusters that are stable rather than unstable as predicted by classical nucleation theory. This study uses molecular dynamics simulations to probe the structure, dynamics, and energetics of hydrated CaCO3 clusters and lattice gas simulations to explore the behavior of cluster populations before nucleation. Our...