Open AccessStructural Chemistry of Anhydrous Sodium Silicates – A Review
Author(s) -
Volker Kahlenberg
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
chimia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2673-2424
pISSN - 0009-4293
DOI - 10.2533/chimia.2010.716
Subject(s) - sodium , anhydrous , crystal twinning , structural chemistry , chemistry , phase transition , inorganic chemistry , mineralogy , materials science , chemical engineering , crystallography , thermodynamics , organic chemistry , microstructure , physics , engineering
Sodium silicates are of considerable importance for many fields of inorganic chemistry and applied mineralogy, being either raw materials for synthesis or already finished products. In addition to their industrial relevance they have also been studied intensively because of their interesting physico-chemical properties including high ion-exchange capacity and selectivity or two-dimensional sodium diffusion and conductivity. Furthermore, the structural chemistry of crystalline sodium silicates offers the crystallographer challenging tasks such as polytypism, polymorphism, temperature and/or pressure-dependent phase transitions, pseudo-symmetry, complex twinning phenomena as well as incommensurately modulated structures. Many of these structural problems have been solved only recently, although in some cases they have been known for several decades. This article will provide an overview on the structurally characterized sodium silicates and their fascinating crystallochemical characteristics.