Scientists Finally Solve 200-Year-Old 'Dolomite Problem'

Dolomite, a naturally occurring mineral that scientists have yet to reproduce without any defects or staggering difficulty, has finally been reportedly reproduced by a team of scholars from the University of Michigan and Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan, after scientists have tried for nearly 200 years.

This latest scientific achievement addresses a long-standing geological mystery known as the "Dolomite Problem," due to scientists failing to quickly reproduce and replicate the rare mineral without any defects.

The feat done in an educational laboratory proved to be successful in producing dolomite by removing faults in the mineral structure as it grew. Water proved to be successful in removing these faults as when the mineral is rinsed with water, the flaws dissolve first.

Rinsing away these faults repeatedly, for example, with rain or tidal cycles, permits a dolomite layer to develop in a matter of years. Dolomite mountains can form throughout geologic time.

Failure to remove any defects with water would slow down dolomite development to a halt, implying that one layer of ordered dolomite would take 10 million years to form.

Geological Achievement with Technological Benefits

Even in previous dolomite replication studies, "crystal growers who wanted to make materials without defects would try to grow them really slowly," as reportedly said by Wenhao Sun, the Dow Early Career Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at U-M and the corresponding author of the paper published today in Science.

The Dolomite Problem's insights can help understand how dolomite develops in nature, leading to the development of new ways to promote the crystal formation of current technology materials.

Thus potentially helping engineers create higher-quality materials for semiconductors, solar panels, batteries, and other technology.

Joonsoo Kim, a doctoral student of materials science and engineering and the study's first author stated the study's benefits as "our theory shows that you can grow defect-free materials quickly, if you periodically dissolve the defects away during growth."

Dolomite Defect Removal

The actual process of removing the defects while growing the dolomite proved to be complex, as the scientists chose to employ atomic simulations to determine how tightly or loosely the defects adhered to an existing dolomite surface.

They then collaborated with the Japanese Hokkaido University to verify their notion that water may truly serve to eliminate flaws from lab-grown Dolomites using transmission electron microscopes.

After putting a tiny dolomite crystal in a calcium and magnesium solution, the researchers and their new collaborators softly pulsed an electron beam 4,000 times over two hours. They discovered that following the pulses, the Dolomite expanded around 100 nanometers-roughly 250,000 times smaller than an inch and equal to 300 layers of the material.

This was a remarkable accomplishment given that more than five layers of Dolomite had never been made in the lab previously.

The American Chemical Society PRF New Doctoral Investigator grant, as well as the U.S. The Department of Energy and the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science are both involved in the study reportedly published in the journal 'Science'.