Marine environmental simulation equipment

Understanding how sediments and rocks in the seafloor interact with surrounding liquids and gases is not a simple matter. But a device made by US experts will help solve this problem.

A device developed by a team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago can replicate the seabed environment inside a small chamber, and study the specimens inside the cavity with x-rays under the conditions. harsh conditions. Researchers say the environmental compartment can simulate sea pressure as deep as 1,000 atmospheres, comparable to the deeper parts of the ocean, at temperatures between 0 and 200 ^° C.

Deep-sea environment still contains many mysteries that people need to study

Stephen Guggenheim, a professor of environmental and earth sciences and a member of the research team, said it was the first device to successfully capture beam data.

X-rays under such extreme conditions. Device models were created about 10 years ago and are now being improved by experimenting with a number of new technologies and using more durable metal to make cavities. X-ray diffraction is used to determine the composition of reactive materials in the cavity and to study the effect of the seabed environment.

The research team said that a new grant from the National Science Foundation will enable them to further improve the facility, adding pump and discharge valves to facilitate sample control. object. The device helps researchers observe the interaction of minerals with sea water and with the gases they give, such as carbon dioxide or methane. At the same time, the team is able to perform experiments every month to see what happens.

Their equipment can be used to study whether long-term excess carbon dioxide sequestration is safely done. Carbon dioxide sequestration is being considered as a way to cope with global warming.