Last February 2020, I went to Diamond Light Source in UK together with Liane, Dominique and Thaïs to do Fe and As K-edge EXAFS measurements at the I-20 beamline. We were mainly looking at redox-active Fe-bearing minerals and their interactions with arsenic, phosphate and silica.

Synchrotron beamtime is always an exciting time for me because I get to shoot high energy X-rays to my (synthetic) Fe-bearing minerals. Plus, it allows me to understand the crystal structure of these minerals, and the nature of the nutrients (e.g., Si, P) and contaminants (e.g., As) immobilized on them.

The beamtime was a success, and now it’s time to analyze all those EXAFS data!