A sessile drop setup for the time-resolved synchrotron study of solid-liquid interactions: Application to intermetallic formation in 55%Al-Zn alloys

We introduce a dedicated setup for measuring by synchrotron diffraction in-situ crystallographic and chemical information at the solid–liquid interface. This setup mostly consists of a double-heating furnace composed of a resistive heating for the solid surface and an inductive heating to produce a liquid droplet. The available high energy and high flux beams allow the rapid reaction kinetics to be investigated with very good time resolution down to 1 ms. An application of this setup is illustrated for the growth mechanisms of intermetallic phases during the hot-dipping of steel in a 55%Al-Zn bath. Results show that the three η-Al5Fe2, θ-Al13Fe4, and α-Al8Fe2Si phases grow at different times and rates during the dipping process, whereas the face-centered cubic AlFe3 phase is not formed.