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Author
J. Desarnaud
D. Bonn
N. Shahidzadeh
Date
5-8-2016
Title
The Pressure induced by salt crystallization in confinement
Journal
Scientific Reports
Volume
6
Article number
30856
Number of pages
8
Document type
Article
Faculty
Faculty of Science (FNWI)
Institute
Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute (WZI)
Institute for High Energy Physics (IHEF)
Institute of Physics (IoP)
Abstract

Salt crystallization is a major cause of weathering of rocks, artworks and monuments. Damage can only occur if crystals continue to grow in confinement, i.e. within the pore space of these materials, thus generating mechanical stress. We report the direct measurement, at the microscale, of the force exerted by growing alkali halide salt crystals while visualizing their spontaneous nucleation and growth. The experiments reveal the crucial role of the wetting films between the growing crystal and the confining walls for the development of the pressure. Our results suggest that the measured force originates from repulsion between the similarly charged confining wall and the salt crystal separated by a ∼1.5 nm liquid film. Indeed, if the walls are made hydrophobic, no film is observed and no repulsive forces are detected. We also show that the magnitude of the induced pressure is system specific explaining why different salts lead to different amounts of damage to porous materials.

URL
go to publisher's site
Other links
Link to publication in Scopus
Language
English
Note
With supplementary information
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/11245.1/36383fe5-f878-42c4-b787-237abcd30e10
Downloads
  • srep30856

  • srep30856-s1

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