1983/12/01 by R. A. D. Pattrick, A. J. Hall · 2 citations
Chemistry · Materials Science · #Crystal Structures and Properties #Inorganic Chemistry and Materials #X-ray Diffraction in Crystallography
paper · doi:10.1180/minmag.1983.047.345.05
crossref issued 1983/12/01 · crossref published 1983/12/01 · crossref published-print 1983/12/01 · openalex publication_date 1983/12/01 · crossref created 2006/12/08 · crossref published-online 2018/07/05 · crossref deposited 2021/08/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/29 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Abstract The limits and effect on cell size of silver substitution into synthetic tetrahedrite, Cu 10 (Zn,Fe,Cd 2 ) Sb 4 S 13 , are investigated for comparison with natural tetrahedrite. The limit of Ag substitution into natural zincian tetrahedrite is ∼ 4 atoms per half unit cell and into iron tetrahedrite ∼ 6.5 atoms (with rare exceptions). The cell size of natural tetrahedrite increases with increasing Ag content up to 4 atoms but decreases with further Ag substitution. The highest Ag substitution achieved in synthetic tetrahedrites was 4.7 atoms in Zn 2 -tetrahedrite, 7.02 atoms in Cd 2 -tetrahedrite and 6.80 atoms in Fe 2 -tetrahedrite. The cell size of synthetic tetrahedrites shows a continuous increase with increasing Ag content, the largest cell size of a = 10.927 Å being in the Cd 2 -tetrahedrite with 7.02 atoms Ag. The iron content of tetrahedrite systematically increased from 1.1 to 2.0 atoms per half unit cell tetrahedrite with increase from 0 to ∼ 4 atoms Ag. The different limit of Ag substitution between Zn 2 and Cd 2 tetrahedrite can be explained by size constraints on the expanding structure. An explanation is given for a limit of 7 atoms Ag substitution in tetrahedrite using a combined electron band/molecular orbital approach.