Abstract
In some experiments at 300 °C the stable quartz transformed into metastable opal which was deposited above water–vapor boundary on ampoule walls and the concentration of dissolved silica (m) with increasing time (t) sometimes fell below solubility of quartz by hundreds times. The unusual behavior of silica was explained by the distillation hypothesis based on the predominant evaporation of the solution at the meniscus edge. To reduce the scatter of m-t data, the number of parallel experiments was increased and all conditions were kept constant. As a result, it was found that the main factor causing solution distillation is the roughness of the internal walls of the ampoules, which causes the solution film to rise along the wall and increases the length of the solution-wall-vapor contact line, where evaporation occurs. Creation of artificial roughness made it possible to reduce the dispersion of m-t points, to deepen and accelerate the process, and to measure coefficients in the rate equation. The mathematical model of this process showed good agreement with the experimental data. An important feature of distillation is the maintenance of a nonequilibrium (overestimated) ratio of SiO2 concentrations in the vapor and in the solution volume. In experiments where the quartz crystal was located both in water and in vapor, the opal was deposited directly on quartz. It means that distillation process is possible not only in case of metallic, but also mineral walls, i.e. it can go in natural cavities, causing redeposition of minerals from bottom to top.
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Alekseyev, V.A. (2023). Spontaneous Solution Distillation in a Closed Silica-Water System at the Water–Vapor Interface: Review of Experimental Studies. In: Kolotov, V.P., Bezaeva, N.S. (eds) Advances in Geochemistry, Analytical Chemistry, and Planetary Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09883-3_8
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