Temperature Variation Effects Towards Formation of Calcite and Aragonite from Seawater

• Main Author: Akmal Hakim Bin Jamaludin, Akmal Hakim
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Teknologi Petronas 2010
• Subjects: TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/1369/1/Akmal_Hakim_Bin_Jamaludin.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/1369/

This report contains the studies done to investigate the natural sequestration of carbon dioxide gas in seawater and the temperature effects towards the formation of calcium carbonate in forms of calcite and aragonite. Early studies done reveals that it is believed that carbon dioxide gas released in the atmosphere actually is one of the causes of the global warming phenomenon. Apart from that, the study uses literature reviews as well as relevant theories from previously done experiment, providing a great guidelines and reference for the study. The experiments were constructed from information gained from well-established theories from the literatures and then executed with objectives of verifying the existing, as well as investigating the relationship of temperature variation towards the formation of calcium carbonate from the actual seawater whether or not aragonite and calcite were present and in what manner it did. The experiment was actually divided into two main sections; one using the artificial seawater as the main reagent and the other one is using actual seawater as the main reagent. The experiments actually yield positive results in which aragonite and calcite were formed, and later confirmed with the Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis done as the characterization procedure. From the results, detailed analysis were done to study the pattern of formation of calcium carbonate at different temperature, where the formation of calcite is favored at lower temperature (30°C) and aragonite and higher temperature (70°C). At temperature of 50°C and 70°C, presence of both aragonite and calcite were detected. In addition, during the analysis, the presence of calcium carbonate in forms of vaterite was detected. Conclusively, the experiments successfully proved that carbon dioxide can actually sequestrate naturally in seawater and temperature is one of the manipulating variables than influences it in a manner that calcite and aragonite forms at each different temperature level.