Abstract
Metal oxide deposition on the inner surfaces of power plant systems reduces heat transfer efficiency and promotes localized corrosion. Nickel ferrite (NixFe1-xFe2O4; 0 ≤ x ≤ 1) is a common yet understudied corrosion product in pressurized water reactors. Conventional electrophoretic studies inaccurately addressed background thermal convection, complicating the isolation of electrophoretic components. Herein, we integrated particle image velocimetry into a hydrothermal cell, to enable precise electrophoretic mobility measurements up to 250 °C. This approach was first validated by measuring the mobilities of zirconium dioxide at 25 °C and 200 °C. Electrophoretic mobilities of Ni0.37Fe0.63Fe2O4 particles were measured up to 250 °C at 50 bar, using HNO3 and KOH as pH modifiers. Results showed the isoelectric point decreased from 5.9 ± 0.1 at 150 °C, plateauing at 5.6 ± 0.1 above 230 °C indicating that higher temperatures favored further deprotonation of surface sites. Thermodynamic analysis indicated surface deprotonation was spontaneous (ΔG° = −43 ± 1 kJ mol−1) and exothermic (ΔH° = − 40 ± 0.8 kJ mol−1) with its favorability increasing due to its positive entropy (ΔS° = 10 ± 2 J mol−1 K−1). This study highlights PIV as a reliable and rapid tool for electrophoretic data acquisition, providing insights into surface chemistry of oxide solution interfaces.
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Data availability
The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to their use in an ongoing study, but are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Code availability
Codes for the calculation of physiochemical properties, zeta potential fitting and thermodynamic analysis are present in the Mendeley data set (DOI: 10.17632/4jbv38c8ps.1).
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Acknowledgements
This study was financially supported by U.S. Department of Energy through Penn State University. Grant number 161706. The co-authors extend sincere thanks to Nichole Wonderling for her insightful discussions and data collection of XRD. The co-authors also acknowledge the use of the Zetasizer Nano ZS (Gino Tambourine) for the DLS measurements. The co-authors also would like to acknowledge the Huck Institutes’ Microscopic Facility (RRID:SCR_024461) for the use of Zeiss SIGMA VP-FESEM 70/30 and Yunzhen Zheng for helpful discussions on sample preparation.
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Hemanth Peddavenkatappagari: Writing – original draft, investigation, validation, methodology, visualization, formal analysis, data curation. Nelson Colman: Software, formal analysis. Ridge Bachman: Preliminary investigation, formal analysis. Matthew Armstrong: Conceptualization, funding, writing—review & editing. John Arnason: Conceptualization, funding, writing – review & editing; Derek Hall: Conceptualization, writing—review & editing, supervision, funding acquisition, project administration, methodology.
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Peddavenkatappagari, H., Colman, N., Bachman, R.M. et al. An electrophoretic study of nickel ferrite particles in high-temperature aqueous solutions using particle image velocimetry. npj Mater Degrad (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41529-025-00733-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41529-025-00733-0
