Vanderkloot & Ryan (2023): Quantifying the effect of grain size on weathering of basaltic powders: Implications for negative emission technologies via soil carbon sequestration
Elizabeth Vanderkloot, Peter Ryan IN: Applied Geochemisty, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeochem.2023.105728
Weathering of basaltic powders was studied experimentally at 35 °C in dilute solutions of oxalic acid and carbonic acid to assess the effect of grain size and reactive surface area for materials under consideration for carbon dioxide reduction (CDR) by enhanced rock weathering (ERW). The basalts chosen for this study (with their mineralogical compositions) are the Blue Ridge (BR) meta-basalt (chlorite > epidote > plagioclase > actinolite) and Pioneer Valley (PV) basalt (plagioclase > augite > quartz > chlorite). Powders of BR and PV basalts were sieved into <45 μm, 45–150 μm, and >150 μm fractions, and experiments were performed in open-system reactors designed to simulate a 1 mm thick layer of basalt added to agricultural soil in the humid tropics.