Micro-structural development of glauberite under temperature and concentration coupling effect.

Rock micro-structure always developed with changing of external circumstances. To investigate the micro-structure the micro-structure development of glauberite under different solutions, serried of experiments were performed with cuboid glauberite specimens in size of 4 mmx4 mmx9 mm, the micro-structure development of the specimens were tested and recorded through a micro-CT system μCT225kVFCB. Through statistic analysis, some characteristics of porosity and pore diameter of glauberite were discovered with concentration and temperature changing of the solutions. The results show that the mineral dissolution of the specimens develops slowly from the outside to the inside, and it is the typical mutual acceleration of dissolution and seepage process. After 48 hours, the porosity of glauberite dissolved in fresh water at RT is almost as tenfold as that of original specimen. However, the porosity of glauberite dissolved in half-saturated and saturated saline solutions only increases one to two times as the original. With solution temperature increasing, the porosity increase rate of glauberite in 95 °C solution is improved by 4 to 5 times than room temperature. Temperature and concentration play a significant role on the porosity development of glauberite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]