The Dissolution of Sparingly Soluble Salt Minerals

In recent years, efforts to understand mineral dissolution have shifted to include both macro-scale processes, in which batch reactors are used to determine bulk dissolution rates, and micro-scale processes, in which surface techniques such as Atomic Force Microscopy are used to directly observe processes occurring on mineral surfaces during dissolution. Although significant progress that links the physical processes of mineral dissolution to solution chemistry has been achieved through this approach, very little academic literature exists on how to link mineral bulk dissolution rates to their surface processes. This book, therefore, introduces a recent study on the dissolution of sparingly soluble salt minerals in which the author explored the kinetic and thermodynamic constraints of mineral dissolution reactions and the relations between surface processes and bulk dissolution rates. The findings from this work should help shed some light on understanding mineral dissolution, and should be especially useful to professionals in low temperature geochemistry field, or anyone else who may be interested in understanding mineral-water interactions.

Chunfang Fan, Ph.D.: Studied Geochemistry at George Washington University. Research Scientist at Rice University, Houston, USA.