EXPERIMENTAL DETERMINATION AND ANALYSIS OF THE SOLUBILITY OF CORUNDUM IN 0.1-MOLAL CACL2 SOLUTIONS BETWEEN 400 AND 600°C AT 0.6 TO 2.0 KBAR

Abstract

Corundum (α-Al2O3) solubility was measured in 0.1-molal CaCl2 solutions from 400 to 600°C between 0.6 and 2.0 kbar. The Al molality at 2 kbar increases from 3.1 x 10-4 at 400°C to 12.7 x 10-4 at 600°C. At 1 kbar, the solubility increases from 1.5 x 10-4 m at 400°C to 3.4 x 10-4 m at 600°C. These molalities are somewhat less than corundum solubility in pure H2O (Walther, 1997) at 400°C but somewhat greater at 600°C. The distribution of species was computed considering the Al species Al(OH)30 and Al(OH)4-, consistent with the solubility of corundum in pure H2O of Walther (1997) and association constants reported in the literature. The calculated solubility was greater than that measured except at 600°C and 2.0 kbar, indicating that neutral-charged species interactions are probably important.A Setchenow model for neutral species resulted in poor fitting of the measured values at 1.0 kbar. This suggests that Al(OH)30 has a greater stability relative to Al(OH)4- than given by the models of Pokrovskii and Helgeson (1995) or Diakonov et al. (1996). The significantly lower Al molalities in CaCl2 relative to those in NaCl solutions at the same concentration confirm the suggestions of Walther (2001) and others that NaAl(OH)40 rather than an Al-Cl complex must be significant in supercritical NaCl solutions to give the observed increase in corundum solubility with increasing NaCl concentrations.