ABSTRACT
Currently, there is in the geochemical and soil science literature a great emphasis on the environmental significance of interactions between inorganic species, mineral surfaces, organic molecules, and microbes. Much of the emphasis has been on the chelation of heavy metal nutrients from minerals by organically mediated mineral dissolution, and on bacterial attachment to mineral surfaces. In this chapter, I focus on a metalloid, silicon, which is the most abundant element, after oxygen, in the Earth’s crust. I summarize results of theoretical studies for silicon-organic interactions where the silicon exists in the solid phase as quartz or amorphous silica, and where the silicon is dissolved in aqueous solution. The studies are motivated by a desire to understand silicon-organic interactions in the natural environment and in organisms.
