Our collaboration with Allan Bertram’s group at UBC continues with another paper on the ice nucleation capability of feldspar!

Yun J., Kumar A, Removski N., Shchukarev A., Link N., Boily J.-F., Bertram A.K. 2021. Effects of Inorganic Acids and Organic Solutes on the Ice Nucleating Ability and Surface Properties of Potassium-Rich Feldspar. ACS Earth Space Chem. (in press).

Using microelectrodes, we revealed a gateway for ion transport in bubbles pinned on hematite and on gold!

You can read our paper “A gateway for ion transport on gas bubbles pinned onto solids” here.
You can read the story behind the paper here.

Harizi V, Nha TPT, Berisha A, Boily JF. 2021. A gateway for ion transport on gas bubbles pinned onto solids. Commun. Chem. 4, 43.

This is the first paper from Merve Yesilbas‘ VR- and NASA-supported work with Janice Bishop at the SETI institute.

Bishop JL, Yeşilbaş M, Hinman NW, Burton ZMF, Englert PAJ,  Toner JD, McEwen AS, Gulick VC, Gibson EK, Koeberl C. 2021. Martian subsurface cryosalt expansion and collapse as trigger for landslides. Sci. Adv. 7, eabe4459.

You can find the paper here and press releases on CNN and SETI

Using soil analogues, the group showed how cryosalts can trigger landslides on Mars. This suggests the martian environment is still dynamic and active today, which is important for future human exploration on Mars. A portion of the experimental work was done in JF Boily’s laboratory.

A paper in collaboration with  Khalil Hanna (Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Rennes) and Eugene Ilton (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)!

Cheng W, Lindholm J, Holmboe M., Luong NT, Shchukarev A, Ilton ES, Hanna K., Boily J.-F. ‡ 2021. Nanoscale hydration in layered manganese oxides. Langmuir. (in press) 

The Swedish Research Council funds  JF Boily with 3.9 Mkr for a new 4-year project on the geochemistry of rust in cold environments!

“Effects of organic matter–goethite interactions on reactive transport of nalidixic acid: Column study and modeling” by the research group of JF Boily and Khalil Hanna (Rennes Institute of Chemical Sciences) is now published in Environmental Research

Using an AFM tip sensitive to water, we tracked the spatial distributions of water films on minerals. We thank the Environmental Molecular Science Laboratory of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for access to its facilities through a User grant.

You can find our paper here:
Yalcin SE, Legg BA, Yeşilbaş M, Malvankar NS, Boily JF. 2020. Direct observation of anisotropic growth of water films on minerals driven by defects and surface tension. Sci. Adv. 6, eaaz9708

In the news: Smart Water Magazine, Phys.org, Yale U., UmU, News Beezer, aitnews, Today Headline, Forskning.se, My News Desk

Using vibrational spectroscopy and simulations we resolved the enigmatic surface chemistry of ferrihydrite. Three ways to learn more about our work:

1. The paper: Boily JF & Song X. 2020 Direct identification of reaction sites on ferrihydrite. Nat. Comm. Chem. DOI 10.1038/s42004-020-0325-y​.
2. Nature’s blog site, with the story behind this paper.
3. Goldschmidt conference: PDF of virtual presentation. Also a Q&A session on June 23rd.

In a collaboration between the JF Boily group and the Allan Bertram group of UBC, we show that K+ is the key ion driving ice nucleation on K-feldspar, an important part of atmospheric mineral dust. Read the paper here:

Merve (Ph.D. 2018, Umeå U.), a VR- and NASA-supported postdoc at SETI, won this
award for her designing a project to explore frozen environments on Mars: