Constraining Weathering Kinetics under Experimentally Simulated Venus Conditions

Venus is a hostile environment affecting man-made materials -- e.g. ceramic thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) for landers -- and Venusian regolith alike. Its dense, highly corrosive greenhouse gas atmosphere exists at 92 bar and surface temperatures exceed 460oC. Weathering here is dominated by very different (thermo)chemical, rather than physical, pathways compared with other rocky planets. Current laboratory analogues simulating weathering on minerals and ceramics have examined thermodynamics, while kinetics in the formation of alteration products remains heavily under constrained. These processes have relevance from survival of probes/landers (e.g. DAVINCI) to Decadal Survey planetary science questions constraining Venus's mineralogy. Moreover, the formation of weathering rinds could affect emissivity spectra taken by planned VERITAS' VEM and EnVision's Ven-Spec M. Careful examination of heterogeneous reaction-diffusion kinetics at surface temperatures and under corrosive, reactive gas mixture is required to understand weathering, effects of passivation caused by rind formation, and reaction timescales. This is of significant relevance in constraining surface composition of the planet to inform lander site selection, exploration, sampling and resource utilization. Simultaneously, understanding heterogeneous kinetics narrows the possible ranges of oxygen/sulfur fugacity in the atmosphere/near the surface, determining possible oxidizing/sulfidizing conditions that limit material stability. The study of penetrating reaction fronts and the resulting microstructural transformations is far reaching, compliments equilibrium analyses, and relates to material selection in mission planning. Therefore, I propose to conduct kinetic analysis for samples exposed to a simplified Venus atmospheric composition and its constituent species to determine reaction rates as a function of temperature and S/O-fugacity. I will pursue this study using thermogravimetric analysis, downstream analysis of gaseous products, and bulk sample weathering at isothermal conditions of maximal Venus' temperatures (482oC) in a tube furnace with appropriate gas composition under the advice of my co-advisors (a spectroscopist/mineralogist and a high temperature ceramicist).

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