Laser confocal microscopy with differential
interference contrast
microscopy (LCM-DIM) was used to study in situ the biotite (001) basal
surface dissolution performing long-term flow-through experiments
at pH 1 (T = 11.5–70 °C). Time-lapse
image sequences of large areas (up to 1 mm) of the evolving cleavage
(001) surface showed that dissolution only occurs at surface edges.
In addition, in contrast to an observed rapid dissolution at low steps
(few layers), swelling and contraction of the edge layers occurred
at high steps (many layers). An increase in temperature enhanced the
surface edge dissolution from 7.5 × 10–4 μm
s–1 at 11.5 °C to 6.2 × 10–2 μm s–1 at 70 °C. The results obtained
in this work demonstrate that LCM-DIM is a powerful technique to study
in situ the dissolution mechanism and kinetics of phyllosilicates.
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