Tag: AFM probes

When they are in put in contact with carbonate minerals dangerous environmental pollutants such as Pb2+ and Cd2+ are taken up by the solid phase assemblage and can be removed from aqueous solutions.*

As carbonates can be found almost everywhere and are easily exploitable this makes them interesting materials for environmental remediation.*

However, magnesite ( MGS ) is well-known for the slow dissolution and growth kinetics at room temperature conditions in the so-called dolomite problem.*

In their article “Pb2+ Uptake by Magnesite: The Competition between Thermodynamic Driving Force and Reaction Kinetics” Fulvio Di Lorenzo, Tobias Arnold and Sergey V. Churakov use in situ atomic force microscopy (AFM) to investigate the growth of {10.4} magnesite surfaces in the absence and in the presence of Pb2+ as well as the effect of solution ageing.*

In their study the authors attempt to answer the question if and under which circumstances magnesium carbonate could be used in removing Pb from wastewater.*

The experimental results presented in above mentioned article have the object to discuss and evaluate the theoretical possibilities and the practical limitations that must be taken into account for the development of environmental remediation technologies based on magnesite.*

The experiments conducted in this study by  Fulvio Di Lorenzo et al. demonstrate that, although the thermodynamic conditions are encouraging, the transformation reaction between magnesite and cerrusite makes it improbably that it will play a crucial role in the development of remediation processes for Pb^II pollution.*

The authors of the study conclude that, although the thermodynamic conditions are encouraging, an environmental remediation process based on MGS as the substrate for a solvent-mediated transformation reaction is unlikely to play a crucial part in industrial applications due to the slow kinetics of MGS dissolution. However, the sluggish kinetics of MGS precipitation is favourable for Pb entrapment by the precipitation of carbonate from Mg2+ and Pb2+-bearing solutions, leading to a strong PbII enrichment in the solid phase even in far-from-equilibirum conditions.*

The in situ flow-through Atomic Force Microscopy was performed using Arrow-UHFAuD AFM probes in tapping mode.

*Fulvio Di Lorenzo, Tobias Arnold, and Sergey V. Churakov
Pb2+ Uptake by Magnesite: The Competition between Thermodynamic Driving Force and Reaction Kinetics
Minerals 2021, 11(4), 415
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/min11040415

Please follow this external link to read the full article: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/11/4/415

Open Access : The article “Pb2+ Uptake by Magnesite: The Competition between Thermodynamic Driving Force and Reaction Kinetics” by Fulvio Di Lorenzo, Tobias Arnold, and Sergey V. Churakov is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.