Quartz dissolution experiments at various pH, temperature and stress conditions: CLSM and ICP-AES investigations

To understand the effects of temperature, pH and mechanical stress on the pressure dissolution of quartz, two experiments using monocrystalline quartz samples were conducted. The first was a closed-fluid experiment to investigate the effect of pH, and the second was a flow-through experiment to investigate stress and temperature effects. To initiate the pressure dissolution, a pair of samples was immersed in a solution with a prescribed pH. The samples were stressed mechanically by pressing one sample against the other. In the closed-fluid experiments, the pH of the solution was fixed to 7, 9, 11 and 13, the applied stress was approximately 200 MPa and temperature 25°C. The flow-through experiments were conducted at three different temperatures (35, 50 and 75°C) at the same pH 11.7. The value of the applied stress was 7.32, 13.72, 21.42 or 25.27 MPa. During each of these dissolution tests, the solution was regularly sampled and analyzed by an Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry technique to measure Si-concentration. With the measured Si-concentration, a dissolution rate constant was computed the different pH, stress and temperature conditions. The rate constant is proportional to pH, stress and temperature, as indicated in the literature. It should be noted that the rate constant for the highest stress (200 MPa) was considerably greater than for the other cases. In addition, island-channel patterns characterized by micro-cracks a few nanometers in length were seen on the dissolved parts of the samples. The findings and the measured data in this paper may be useful for the future development of theoretical models for pressure dissolution and its validation.