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.....please!
I've currently got about 4 client projects on the go at once, and am desperately trying to get one of them written up - am so knackered, my brain is even mushier than normal!
Just wondered if there are any chemists or geologists on here who might be able to help advise on terminology? In the report, I'm trying to explain a chemical reaction in laymans terms, but want make sure that it's correct/not misleading.
I have analysed a sample of powdered brick dust that had been heated to approx. 1150 deg Celcius for 7 days, which has resulted in the powder melting (vitrifying?) it into a solid amorphous 'blob'. The powdered dust was contaminated with small amounts of alkali wood ash and flakes of iron oxide (coarse iron filings). The microstructure of the material has some areas with mineral phases present (phases inc. Fayalite & Wustite and/or possibly Magnetite), and also some small <0.3mm non spheroidal blobs (agglomerations?) of metallic iron.
I was going to say that, during the extended heating cycle, that the mineral phases and iron had precipitated out of the amorphous clay-based matrix. Is the latter (i.e. precipitated) the correct terminology to use?
Any help or sensible suggestions would be most welcome.
TIA!
Yeah precipitated should work, not sure it's technically a precipitation though.
crystallised.
You would have phenocrysts of minerals and errrm bugger I've forgotten the name for ore blobs.
melanosomething? means dark bits. just say dark bits.
Is it not just "separation"?
...opaques.
Or might even be "differentiation"? - any process in which a mixture of materials separates out partially or completely into its constituent parts, as in the cooling and solidification of a magma into two or more different rock types...
Pistola the process you are describing is fractionation/fractional distilation - which could describe the above but crystallization would be more accurate as it isn't producing two rock types - just cooling.
(he says confidently - having not picked a text book up for over a decade!)
Migrated........as its rather topical at the moment!!
magicked-up
Thanks for the feedback - Ah yes, crystallised might work - maybe something like 'some mineral phases crystallised during the heating & cooling phase of'....yada yada.
Then I guess I could go for 'metallic iron has precipitated (or coalesce ?) from natural iron content of the amorphous clay-like matrix(?).
The latter is a strange one, as the temperature never got anywhere near the melting point of iron (1538 deg C), but the material was held at about 1100 to 1150 deg C (in a reducing atmosphere) for at least 7 days - but held at high enough temp for 'things to happen' to the iron content(?).
Should be recrystallisation of mineral phases with the amorphous mass.
It depends if you have observed complete melting of the material, if so you'd be looking at preferential mineral formation as part of the cooling cycle. Kinda like eutectic mixtures having a cooling phase order with temperature decrease.
Anyway....
I'm a bit of both
crystallised might work - maybe something like 'some mineral phases crystallised during the heating & cooling phase of'....yada yada.
[Super pedant mode] Crystallised is reasonable, and precipitated would be OK too, but I wouldn't call them minerals because 'mineral' can have overtones of being a natural material. Also, precipitation would occur on cooling, but not in the heating part of the cycle. [/Super pedant mode]
Then I guess I could go for 'metallic iron has precipitated (or coalesce ?) from natural iron content of the amorphous clay-like matrix(?).The latter is a strange one, as the temperature never got anywhere near the melting point of iron (1538 deg C), but the material was held at about 1100 to 1150 deg C (in a reducing atmosphere) for at least 7 days - but held at high enough temp for 'things to happen' to the iron content(?).
I'd use the word 'formation' for the metallic Fe- it's sufficiently non-commital. While the furnace temperature may be below the melting point of Fe, you could have localised heating due to exothermic reaction (you could check this with differential thermal analysis)