Tm3030 sem

The presence of secondary phases, formed during dissolution, was determined via SEM/EDX using a Hitachi TM3030 SEM coupled with Bruker Quantax EDX system. XRD of the pellet surface, post-dissolution, was performed as described above, between 5° and 100° 2θ with a step size of 0.02° and a step time of 2 s. To improve diffraction pattern analysis, the precipitates were gently removed from the surfaces of pellets and analysed. XRD patterns were indexed using PDF SIEV + software. Geochemical modelling using PHREEQC-3 and the LLNL database was used to identify potential species that reached saturation limits in the dissolution.

Reacted powders were ground and characterised by powder X-ray diffraction with a Bruker D2 Phaser X-ray diffractometer using Cu Kα radiation. Cu Kβ radiation was filtered using a Ni foil. XRD data were processed using the Bruker DiffracEva software package.
Sintered pellets were characterised by scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX) using a Hitachi TM3030 SEM equipped with a Bruker Quantax EDX. An accelerating voltage of 15 kV was used for imaging. EDX data were analysed using Bruker Quantax software. Sintered pellets were prepared for SEM analysis by mounting in cold setting resin and polishing with SiC paper and progressively finer diamond pastes to an optical finish (1 μm). Samples were sputter coated with carbon to reduce surface charging effects.