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Experimental determination of the surface energy of NaCl crystal
- Supervisor: Noushine Shahidzadeh, Daniel Bonn
- Project Type: Bachelor Project
- Goal: To estimate the surface energy of salt crystals.
- Info: Send email to: N.Shahidzadeh or call: +31(0) 20 525 8261
- PDF: Click here for PDF
The surface energy of a solid influences the growth rate, adsorption, catalytic behavior, surface segregation and the formation of grain boundaries. Their determination is of great importance for understanding mechanisms of many physical phenomena. Despite its importance, surface energy values are very difficult to measure experimentally although computer simulation results can be found.
This project consists of:
1 - Setting up an experiment for the control growth of pendant NaCl crystals at the liquid/air interface.
2 - Record and analyse the time evolution of the crystal growth till it falls in the solution.
3 - Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) analysis of the pendant crystals at different stages of growth
4 - Estimating the surface energy of the crystal by analogy to the pendant drop method for surface tension measurements of liquids.