News Brief: Geochemists explore a mineral's 1st step at ACS meeting
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Category: ResearchType: News
Source: PNNL
Date: Thursday, April 6th, 2017
April 06, 2017 
SAN FRANCISCO - Geochemistry explores chemical reactions in the atmosphere, the oceans, the soil and deep underground. Researchers from the D.O.E.'s Pacific Northwest National Lab have organized a symposium that focuses on how minerals take the 1st step of formation - nucleation - at the American Chemical Society's yearly meeting in San Francisco.
Organized by PNNL researchers Benjamin Legg and Shawn Riechers, the event brings together experts to discuss experimental and computational work that presents novel structures, dynamics, or mechanisms of nucleation and phase transition in ice, carbonates, and other minerals. Several PNNL scientists will speak at the one-day event, including Christopher Mundy, Shawn Kathmann, Michel Sassi, and Gregory Schenter.
At PNNL, Legg uses atomic force microscopy, statistical mechanics, and thermodynamics to answer difficult questions about mineral nucleation, nanoparticle aggregation, and nanoparticle-environment interactions. Riechers studies mineral nucleation at the nanoscale, which provides a detailed understanding of simple surfaces and allows him to extrapolate results to more complex surfaces.
Titled Mineral Nucleation: Transient Intermediates & Phase Transitions, the symposium begins Thursday at eight am.
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Tags: Fundamental Science, Chemistry, Nanoscience
Interdisciplinary teams at Pacific Northwest National Lab address many of America's most pressing issues in energy, the environment and national security through advances in basic and applied science. Founded in 1965, PNNL employs 4,400 staff and has an yearly budget of nearly $1 billion. It is managed by Battelle for the D.O.E.'s Office of Science. As the single biggest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, the Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information on PNNL, visit the PNNL News Center, or follow PNNL on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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