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Beautiful images of erbium hydroxide microflowers, Er2CO3(OH)2

Published: 17 February 2016

As part of a collaboration between the Butler group in Department of Chemistry and the Kozinskli group in the Department of Mining and Materials Engineering at McGill, Dr. Hassane Assaaoudi has investigated the effects of temperature, pressure, pH, residence time and reactant concentrations, as well as the presence or absence of CO2, on the size and morphology of erbium hydroxide particles synthesized in a hydrothermal batch reactor and a diamond-anvil cell reactor. Several new erbium-based microstructures and nanostructures have been obtained, including crystalline microflowers, hexagonal microlayers, microsticks and microspheres, nanofibers, nanorods and nanolayers. This picture of the microflowers will be on display at the forthcoming exhibition on Nanotechology that will open on March 9, 2016 at the Musée de la civilisation in the Old Port. It was recognized in the 2010 image contest "Preuve par l'Image" organized by ACFAS.

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