0000000000382953
AUTHOR
Sandro Ebert
New insights into the mineralogy and weathering of the Meridiani Planum meteorite, Mars
– Meridiani Planum is the first officially recognized meteorite find on the surface of Mars. It was discovered at and named after the landing site of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. Based on its composition, it was classified as a IAB complex iron meteorite. Mossbauer spectra obtained by Opportunity are dominated by kamacite (α-Fe-Ni) and exhibit a small contribution of ferric oxide. Several small features in the spectra have been neglected to date. To shed more light on these features, five iron meteorite specimens were investigated as analogs to Meridiani Planum with a laboratory Mossbauer setup. Measurements were performed on (1) their metallic bulk, (2) troilite (FeS) inclusions…
Mechanistic Understanding of Food Effects: Water Diffusivity in Gastrointestinal Tract Is an Important Parameter for the Prediction of Disintegration of Solid Oral Dosage Forms
Much interest has been expressed in this work on the role of water diffusivity in the release media as a new parameter for predicting drug release. NMR was used to measure water diffusivity in different media varying in their osmolality and viscosity. Water self-diffusion coefficients in sucrose, sodium chloride, and polymeric hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) solutions were correlated with water uptake, disintegration, and drug release rates from trospium chloride immediate release tablets. The water diffusivity in sucrose solutions was significantly reduced compared to polymeric HPMC and molecular sodium chloride solutions. Water diffusivity was found to be a function of sucrose concen…
In-situ Mössbauer Spectroscopy with MIMOS II at Rio Tinto, Spain
The Rio Tinto, located in southwest Spain, exhibits a nearly constant, acidic pHvalue along its course. Due to the formation of sulfate minerals, Rio Tinto is considered a potential analogue site for sulfate-rich regions on Mars, in particular at the landing site of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, where the ferric sulfate mineral jarosite was identified with Opportunity's Mössbauer spectrometer. Primary and secondary mineralogy was investigated in situ with portable Raman and Mössbauer spectrometers at four different Rio Tinto sampling sites. The two techniques analyse different sample portions due to their specific field of view and sampling depth and provide complementar…