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Locating hydrogen positions in the autunite mineral metatorbernite [Cu(UO2)2(PO4)2·8H2O]: a combined approach using neutron powder diffraction and computational modelling

ABSTRACT: A combination of neutron powder diffraction and ab initio random structure searching was used to locate hydrogen positions in the crystal structure of metatorbernite [Cu(UO2)2(PO4)2·8H2O], a common autunite mineral that shows promise for uranium remediation. Metatorbernite [Cu(UO2)2(PO4)2·8H2O] is a promising remediation material for environmental uranium contamination. Previous X-ray diffraction studies have been unable to definitively locate hydrogen positions within metatorbernite, which are key to determining the hydrogen-bond network that helps to stabilize the structure. Here, hydrogen positions have been determined using a combination of neutron powder diffraction and the computational modelling technique ab initio random structure searching (AIRSS). Atomic coordinates determined through Rietveld analysis of neutron powder diffraction data are in excellent agreement with the minimum energy configuration predicted by AIRSS; thus, simulations confirm that our proposed model likely represents the global minimum configuration. Two groups of water molecules exist within the metatorbernite structure: free water and copper-coordinating water. Free water molecules are held within the structure by hydrogen bonding only, whilst the coordinating water molecules bond to copper in the equatorial positions to produce a 4 + 2 Jahn–Teller octahedra. The successful agreement between neutron powder diffraction data and AIRSS suggests that this combined approach has excellent potential for the study of other (trans)uranium materials in which hydrogen bonding plays a key role in phase stability.

SUBMITTER: MacIver-Jones F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8562655 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:We report high-pressure neutron powder diffraction measurements of the most hydrated phase in the MgSO4–H2O system, magnesium sulfate undecahydrate, including an analysis of the elastic strain tensor and observations concerning phase changes that occur at high pressure. We have collected neutron powder diffraction data from MgSO4·11D2O (the deuterated analogue of meridianiite), a highly hydrated sulfate salt that is thought to be a candidate rock-forming mineral in some icy satellites of the outer solar system. Our measurements, made using the PEARL/HiPr and OSIRIS instruments at the ISIS neutron spallation source, covered the range 0.1 < P < 800?MPa and 150 < T < 280?K. The refined unit-cell volumes as a function of P and T are parameterized in the form of a Murnaghan integrated linear equation of state having a zero-pressure volume V0 = 706.23?(8)?Å3, zero-pressure bulk modulus K0 = 19.9?(4)?GPa and its first pressure derivative, K? = 9?(1). The structure’s compressibility is highly anisotropic, as expected, with the three principal directions of the unit-strain tensor having compressibilities of 9.6?×?10?3, 3.4?×?10?2 and 3.4?×?10?3 GPa?1, the most compressible direction being perpendicular to the long axis of a discrete hexadecameric water cluster, (D2O)16. At high pressure we observed two different phase transitions. First, warming of MgSO4·11D2O at 545?MPa resulted in a change in the diffraction pattern at 275?K consistent with partial (peritectic) melting; quasielastic neutron spectra collected simultaneously evince the onset of the reorientational motion of D2O molecules with characteristic time-scales of 20–30?ps, longer than those found in bulk liquid water at the same temperature and commensurate with the lifetime of solvent-separated ion pairs in aqueous MgSO4. Second, at ??0.9?GPa, 240?K, MgSO4·11D2O decomposed into high-pressure water ice phase VI and MgSO4·9D2O, a recently discovered phase that has hitherto only been formed at ambient pressure by quenching small droplets of MgSO4(aq) in liquid nitrogen. The fate of the high-pressure enneahydrate on further compression and warming is not clear from the neutron diffraction data, but its occurrence indicates that it may also be a rock-forming mineral in the deep mantles of large icy satellites.

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Locating hydrogen positions in the autunite mineral metatorbernite [Cu(UO2)2(PO4)2·8H2O]: a combined approach using neutron powder diffraction and computational modelling

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