PNNL

The Science

Meeting the challenge of climate change requires finding ways to trap and store carbon dioxide. Olivine has been extensively explored for potential applications in carbon storage and recently, critical mineral recovery. The broad olivine structural class contains many different minerals determined by the metal cation composition, commonly magnesium and iron. Trace metals, such as nickel, manganese, and cobalt, can incorporate into olivine as well. Researchers used literature and database powder X-ray diffraction data to quantify the relationship between lattice parameters and the mineral composition. They produced an expanded, enhanced database and equations that relate olivine’s structure to its composition.

The Impact

Olivine is a common, yet complicated mineral with a range of compositions. This work presents a path for researchers to quickly determine the composition of olivine samples. Rather than requiring destructive analysis techniques, researchers can identify the composition by running X-ray diffraction measurements. This allows scientists to obtain more information with less effort, enhancing studies of olivine geared toward carbon sequestration and critical mineral recovery.

Summary

Olivine is a dynamic mineral important to climate technology-relevant processes, such as geologic carbon storage and critical mineral recovery. To better understand olivine, researchers evaluated the existing literature and compiled a new database of olivine diffraction data, lattice parameters, and compositions. This new database can enable the rapid determination of olivine composition. They compiled olivine X-ray diffraction data and chemical compositions from the literature and the International Centre for Diffraction Data powder database to plot both the forsterite–fayalite (Mg₂SiO₄–Fe₂SiO₄) and forsterite–liebenbergite (Mg₂SiO₄–Ni₂SiO₄) solid-solution lines. The final product of the work is an expanded dataset that can help researchers delineate equations and relationships used for quantifying the correlations between olivine lattice parameters and chemical compositions in forsterite–fayalite and forsterite–liebenbergite olivine solid-solution series.

Contact

Quin Miller, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, quin.miller@pnnl.gov

C. Heath Stanfield, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, charles.stanfield@pnnl.gov

Funding

This work was performed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) with support from Dr. Douglas Wicks from the Department of Energy and the DOE Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy MINER program under contract no. 22/CJ000/09/02. We also acknowledge support from Darin Damiani (DOE) and the DOE Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) through its Carbon Storage program. This work was supported in part by the DOE Office of Science (SC), Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists (WDTS) under the Community College Internships (CCI) program. This work was supported in part by DOE SC, WDTS under the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships Program (SULI). This work was supported in part by the FECM Mickey Leland Energy Fellowship (MLEF). AMM (CCI), CHS (SULI), MAM (MLEF), and MFB (SULI) thank the DOE for supporting their internships at PNNL. PNNL is operated by Battelle for DOE under contract no. DE-AC05-76RLO1830.