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Salt crystallization is a major cause of weathering of artworks, monumentsand rocks. Damage will occur if crystals continue to grow in confinement, i.e.within the pore space of these materials generating mechanical stresses. Wereport on a novel method that allows to directly measure, at the microscale,the resulting pressure while visualizing the spontaneous nucleation and growthof alkali halide salts. The experiments reveal the crucial role of the wettingfilms between the growing crystal and the confining walls for the developmentof the pressure. The results suggest that the pressure originates from a chargerepulsion between the similarly charged wall and the crystal separated by a~1.5 nm salt solution film. Consequently, if the walls are made hydrophobic, nofilm and no crystallization pressure are detected. The magnitude of thepressure is system-specific and explains how a growing crystal exerts stressesat the scale of individual grains in porous materials.

Measurement of the Pressure induced by salt crystallization in confinement