Pellet-grown chemical gardens in horizontal planar confined geometry : Diffusion-controlled growth and osmotic fracture
- 1Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom (mz474@cam.ac.uk)
- 2Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom (afr10@cam.ac.uk)
- 3Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom (heh1@cam.ac.uk)
- 4Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas--Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain (julyan.cartwright@csic.es)
- 5Instituto Carlos I de Física Teórica y Computacional, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain
Chemical gardens refer to a class of plant-like self-assembling inorganic precipitate structures whose growth is driven by osmosis. They are thought to be related to hydrothermal vents and the origin of life. In this work, we have investigated the dynamical behaviour of chemical gardens grown in a horizontal Hele-Shaw cell from cobalt and manganese chloride with aqueous sodium silicate. It is found that the growth of the chemical gardens is well-described by a diffusion-controlled model. In reproducible time scales, the chemical gardens exhibit explosive fracture, which we attribute to osmosis-induced pressurisation. This is similar to osmotic lysis found in biological cells.
How to cite: Zheng, M., Cardoso, S. S. S., Huppert, H. E., Cartwright, J. H. E., and Routh, A. F.: Pellet-grown chemical gardens in horizontal planar confined geometry : Diffusion-controlled growth and osmotic fracture, Europlanet Science Congress 2024, Berlin, Germany, 8–13 Sep 2024, EPSC2024-253, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2024-253, 2024.
