Surface Science Investigations: Calcite Surface Reconstruction and Ferrihydrite Reactivity

Abstract

On surfaces and within interfaces occur some of the most important reactions in chemistry, from world changing industrial reactions to critical environmental processes. It is even hypothesized that the chiral nature of life arose from reactions occurring on chiral mineral surfaces. In any case adsorption typically plays a key role. Adsorption can occur on rapid time scales, particularly in catalytic systems, and it can be the precursor to highly stable surface interaction mechanisms such as surface precipitation. Surface adsorption can have a dramatic affect on the resulting surface increasing or decreasing the propensity for further reactivity or adsorption. In order to understand the processes occurring on a surface both the surface and the adsorbate must be understood. This includes a surface with any prior adsorbates. This is why many catalytic studies are done in UHV environments where clean surfaces are prepared for each experiment. The same is true with environmental surfaces, but obtaining pristine surfaces can be problematic, and systems are often extremely complicated involving organic, inorganic, and biological components. Often research is focused on just one component. A significant portion of this dissertation is focused on the adsorption of organic and inorganic species on pristine mineral surfaces. While there is significant research done on environmental surfaces, often times the surface used in studies is not well characterized. In essence lesser attention is paid to the substrate then the adsorbate. This is particularly true of infrared studies similar to the type presented in chapter 5 where carbonate is shown to exist in significant quantity on all ferrihydrite surfaces. Furthermore, chapter 4 highlights the potential for ion mobility on calcite surfaces under ambient conditions and the effect the adsorbates in chapter 3 have on the mobility process. The principal of this dissertation is to characterize fundamental surface processes which occur on calcite and ferrihydrite surfaces under ambient conditions. The hope is that this can lay the ground work for future studies where native adsorption and restructuring is taken into account on mineral surfaces during experimental studies.