Official websites use .gov
A
.gov website belongs to an official
government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock (
) or https:// means you've safely
connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive
information only on official, secure websites.
Schematic showing the generally accepted pathways to silica formation from orthosilicic acid through oligomers to particles and aggregated structures. Annotations to show where in the process the sponge protein silicatein and a few other selected biomolecules act are also shown.
