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What are you researching?
I am studying the oxidation of molten aluminum, and
especially what effect beryllium has on the oxidation.
Traditionally, beryllium has been used to reduce oxida-
tion in aluminum, but there are health risks connected
to the use of it in the process, so I am trying to find alter-
native ways to achieve the same results.
How are you performing your research?
To find an alternative I first have to figure out exactly
what beryllium does in the process. Therefore, I use a
horizontal tube furnace at atmospheric pressure to oxi-
dize small-scale samples of Al with and without berylli-
um. Then the oxidation layer is studied with an electron
microscope, XPS and SIMS.
Who is involved in your research?
I have yet to understand the process completely, but it
is an interesting project and Hydro and Alcoa, which are
industrial partners, are very interested and the project is
discussed thoroughly with them.
Tell us about an interesting result.
My most interesting result is in these two Figures, which
show a sample with and one without beryllium. Both
samples were oxidized at the same time and tempera-
ture. The figures show a cross-section through the oxide
layer. The oxide layer consist of two parts, a dense and a
granular layer. The granular layer was found to be sig-
nificantly reduced in the sample with beryllium. It has
been concluded that the beryllium has prevented the
transport of magnesium through the dense layer thus
reducing the amount of granular growth.
PHD
NICHOLAS SMITH
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