Calorimetry of silicate minerals

Do Silicate Minerals Stabilize Ribose as well ?

The Silica Tetrahedron and the Architecture of Silicate Minerals

With oxygen and silicon comprising approximately 85% of the atoms in Earth’s crust, most minerals in the crust include these two elements, and form the class of minerals called silicates. The basic building block of all silicate minerals is the silica tetrahedron, in which one silicon ion bonds with four oxygen ions. This arrangement of ions (coordination number of 4) is dictated by the ratio o...

Thermodynamic Properties of Uranyl Minerals: Constraints from Calorimetry and Solubility Measurements

More than 50 uranyl minerals, phases containing U as the uranyl UO2 2+ cation, and hydroxide, carbonate, phosphate, and silicate anions, H2O, and alkali and alkaline earth cations, occur in nature and as corrosion products of spent nuclear fuel. Despite their importance and the need to understand their thermodynamics to predict uranium solubility, fate, and transport in the environment, reliabl...

THE CRYSTAL CHEMISTRY OF SILICATE MINERALS WITH CHAINS OF (TiO6) OCTAHEDRA

Chains of (TiO6) octahedra occur in several crystal structures as fundamental building blocks, confirming the tendency of self-polymerization for (TiO6) octahedra. There are two topologically distinct types of chains based on linkage of (TiO6) octahedra, corner-sharing chains and edge-sharing chains. In this paper, we focus on the diversity of linkages between chains of (TiO6) octahedra and (Si...

Dissolution and crystallization rates of silicate minerals as a function of chemical affinity

A b s t r a c t The variation of silicate dissolution and crystallization rates with chemical affinity and solution composition can be quantified by the identification of the rate controlling precursor complex. The nature of this complex depends on the individual mineral structure. Specifically, the destruction of quartz and anorthite frameworks requires the breaking of only one type of structu...