Growth of and contaminant incorporation in complex carbonate coatings at mineral/water interfaces
EMSL Project ID
49839
Abstract
All realistic mineral surfaces in natural waters can be expected to be coated, and their reactive properties influenced by the presence of coatings. It is a common but challenging interfacial process to understand because the nature of the coatings is a complex function of solution conditions, solubility, and interfacial structure, and because of difficulties in detecting and probing thin, often structurally and/or chemically similar minerals on minerals. The long-term vision of this research is therefore to provide fundamental insights into and quantitative understanding of mineral coatings and the mineral/fluid interfacial properties that emerge as they form. In particular, this research will determine the ability of mineral coatings to incorporate contaminants.Due to their broad relevance to biogeochemical, environmental, and energy-related systems, metal carbonates will be used as a model system to quantify the effects of several thermodynamic and kinetic controlling factors (structural mismatch, solubility of competing phases, and dynamics of water exchange). A combination of state-of-the-art experimental capabilities and molecular simulations will be deployed to overcome current limitations and yield fundamental insights. Atomic force microscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy will be employed to characterize the structure of mineral coatings from the atomic to the micron scale and will provide both lateral and cross-sectional views. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy will be used to determine the depth-dependent composition of the mineral coatings with and without contaminants present. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry will serve to quantify the solution chemistry. In addition, an atomistic model of heteroepitaxial carbonate films will be constructed to help interpret and rationalize experimental observations and, once validated, predict the energetics of contaminant incorporation.
Project Details
Project type
Large-Scale EMSL Research
Start Date
2017-10-01
End Date
2019-09-30
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator
Team Members
Related Publications
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