Thermodynamics of mixing in diopside-jadeite, CaMgSi2O6-NaAlSi2O6, solid solution from staticlattice energy calculations

Static lattice energy calculations (SLEC), based on empirical interatomic potentials, have beenperformed for a set of 800 different structures in a 2 2 4 supercell of C2/c diopside with compositionsbetween diopside and jadeite, and with different states of order of the exchangeable Na/Ca and Mg/Al cations. Excess static energies of these structures have been cluster expanded in a basis set of 37 pair-interaction parameters. These parameters have been used to constrain Monte Carlo simulations of temperature-dependent properties in the range of 273?2,023 K and to calculate a temperature?composition phase diagram. The simulations predict the order?disorder transition in omphacite at1,150 20C in good agreement with the experimental data of Carpenter (Mineral Petrol 78:433?440, 1981). The stronger ordering of Mg/Al within the M1 site than of Ca/Na in the M2 site is attributed to the shorter M1?M1 nearest-neighbor distance, and, consequently, the stronger ordering force. The comparison of the simulated relationship between the order parameters corresponding to M1 and M2 sites with the X-ray refinement data on natural omphacites (Boffa Ballaran et al. in Am Mineral83:419?433, 1998) suggests that the cation ordering becomes kinetically ineffective at about 600C

Lanthanum pyrochlores and the effect of yttrium addition in the systems La2-xYxZr2O7 and La2-xYxHf2O7.

The crystal structures of the compounds La2−xYxZr2O7 and La2−xYxHf2O7 with x=0.0, 0.4, 0.8, 1.2, 1.6, and 2.0 have been studied using neutron powder diffraction and electron microscopy to determine the stability fields of the pyrochlore and fluorite solid solutions. The limits of pyrochlore stability in these solid solutions are found to be close to La0.8Y1.2Zr2O7 and La0.4Y1.6Hf2O7, respectively. In both systems the unit cell parameter is found to vary linearly with Y content across those compositions where the pyrochlore phase is stable, as does the x-coordinate of the oxygen atoms on the 48f (x,3/8,3/8) sites. In both systems, linear extrapolations of the pyrochlore data suggest that the disordering is accompanied by a small decrease in the lattice parameter of approximately 0.4%. After the pyrochlore solid solution limit is reached, a sharp change is observed from x~0.41 to 0.375 as the disordered defect fluorite structure is favoured. Electron diffraction patterns illustrate that some short-range order remains in the disordered defect fluorite phases. © 2009, Elsevier Ltd

Pyrochlore to fluorite transitions - ordering in fluorites?

Two systems have been studied La2-xYxZr2O7 and La2-xYxHf2O7, as part of an on-going study of radiation tolerance in nuclear waste forms and related oxide materials. The structural effects of increasing Y content in La based zirconate and hafnate pyrochlores have been studied with neutron diffraction and electron microscopy. Results have shown a difference in structural stability for both the pyrochlore and fluorite phases within each system, including the presence of two-phase regions in both systems. In the zirconate, the two-phase region lies in the range x = 0.9-1.6. This is shifted to higher Y content in the hafnate system and lies in the range of x = 1.5 to approximately 1.8-1.9. In addition to the differences in phase stability, electron diffraction, predominantly down the [110] zone axis, has shown evidence for ordering in the form of structured diffuse scattering within the fluorite phases

Ammonium cyanate shows N-H...N hydrogen bonding, not N-H...O

The transformation of ammonium cyanate into urea, first studied over 170 years ago by Wöhler and Liebig, has an important place in the history of chemistry. To understand the nature of this solid state reaction, knowledge of the crystal structure of ammonium cyanate is a prerequisite. Employing neutron powder diffraction, we demonstrate conclusively that, in the structure of ammonium cyanate, the NH4+ cation forms N−H···N hydrogen bonds to four cyanate N atoms at alternate corners of a distorted cube, rather than our previously proposed alternative arrangement with N−H···O hydrogen bonds to cyanate O atoms at the other four corners

Ammonium cyanate: a DFT study of crystal structure, rotational barriers and vibrational spectrum

The crystal structure, rotational barriers and vibrational spectrum of ammonium cyanate have been studied by DFT calculations. The results show that, in the most stable structure, the ammonium ion is oriented such that each N-H bond points towards the N atoms of a cyanate anion giving rise to N-H...N hydrogen bonding, rather than N-H...O hydrogen bonding. The N-C and C-O bond lengths suggest that the structure of the anion in the crystal is best described as N-=C=O. These structural features are in agreement with recent results from neutron diffraction. At the transition state for rotation of the ammonium cation about an N-H bond, the cation is displaced and distorted from its equilibrium configuration. The barrier to the rotation of the ammonium cation about the (4) over bar axis is found to be larger than the minimum barrier to rotation about an N-H bond, suggesting that the latter is the preferred rotational mode