Recent results from the in situ study of hydrothermal crystallisations using time-resolved X-ray and neutron diffraction methods

Abstract

We present new time-resolved powder diffraction data measured in situ during the hydrothermal crystallisation of two families of crystalline inorganic materials. In the first study, we have used time-resolved energy-dispersive X-ray diffraction (EDXRD) to follow the formation of zeolitic zinc phosphates from amine phosphates and zinc oxide in acidic solutions at 60–150 °C. The advantage of this method is the ability to penetrate a laboratory-sized reaction vessel and to measure data in short ( <1 min) time intervals. Integration of the Bragg peak intensities during the crystallisation of the product allows accurate crystallisation curves to be produced. In addition, in a number of cases, we observe the formation of transient crystalline intermediate phases which can be identified by use of a new three-element detector that allows a large amount of diffraction data to be measured during the experiment. We are thus able to show that three-dimensional zinc phosphate architectures often form via low-dimensional chain and layered phases, which is consistent with a recent aufbau model proposed for their formation. In the second study, we focus on the hydrothermal formation of ferroelectric barium titanate from TiO₂ and barium salts in alkaline solution using time-resolved neutron diffraction. Although the time resolution of the neutron diffraction experiment is lower than the EDXRD experiment (data are measured in intervals of 5 min), we are able to penetrate reaction mixtures that are highly absorbing towards X-rays, and thus can measure data in a large volume reaction cell. Neutron diffraction data were collected on one of the highest-flux/highest detector-coverage diffractometers currently available; the GEM diffractometer at ISIS, UK. These experiments reveal that BaTiO₃ crystallises after a large amount of TiO₂ has been consumed; this implies that a dissolution–crystallisation mechanism predominates. Additional mechanistic information is inferred by the observation of transient crystalline phases under certain reaction conditions.