Friction and Wear of Mineral Surfaces in Liquid Environments

Lateral Force Microscopy (LFM) is a very suitable technique to investigate the structure and reactivity of mineral surfaces in liquids. Studies performed in the last two decades have shown that the dissolution and growth of mineral surfaces immersed in water and aqueous solutions can be monitored by recording friction signals with LFM. Moreover, the sensitivity of lateral forces to both structure and chemistry makes possible to use LFM to obtain information about monolayers formed on mineral faces. Finally, numerous mineral surfaces are excellent substrates on which nanoparticles and complex organic molecules can be deposited and subsequently imaged and manipulated. This opens the way to future applications in molecular electronics. This chapter presents an overview of the recent use of LFM in liquid to investigate mineral surfaces and processes occurring on them