Disordered Crystal Structure and Anomalously High Solubility of Radium Carbonate
Journal article, 2023

Radium-226 carbonate was synthesized from radium-barium sulfate (226Ra0.76Ba0.24SO4) at room temperature and characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) techniques. XRPD revealed that fractional crystallization occurred and that two phases were formed─the major Ra-rich phase, Ra(Ba)CO3, and a minor Ba-rich phase, Ba(Ra)CO3, crystallizing in the orthorhombic space group Pnma (no. 62) that is isostructural with witherite (BaCO3) but with slightly larger unit cell dimensions. Direct-space ab initio modeling shows that the carbonate oxygens in the major Ra(Ba)CO3 phase are highly disordered. The solubility of the synthesized major Ra(Ba)CO3 phase was studied from under- and oversaturation at 25.1 °C as a function of ionic strength using NaCl as the supporting electrolyte. It was found that the decimal logarithm of the solubility product of Ra(Ba)CO3 at zero ionic strength (log10 Ksp0) is −7.5(1) (2σ) (s = 0.05 g·L-1). This is significantly higher than the log10 Ksp0 of witherite of −8.56 (s = 0.01 g·L-1), supporting the disordered nature of the major Ra(Ba)CO3 phase. The limited co-precipitation of Ra2+ within witherite, the significantly higher solubility of pure RaCO3 compared to witherite, and thermodynamic modeling show that the results obtained in this work for the major Ra(Ba)CO3 phase are also applicable to pure RaCO3. The refinement of the EXAFS data reveals that radium is coordinated by nine oxygens in a broad bond distance distribution with a mean Ra-O bond distance of 2.885(3) Å (1σ). The Ra-O bond distance gives an ionic radius of Ra2+ in a 9-fold coordination of 1.545(6) Å (1σ).

Author

Artem Matyskin

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Energy and Material

Burcak Ebin

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Energy and Material

Stefan Allard

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Energy and Material

Natallia Torapava

MAX IV Laboratory

Lars Eriksson

Stockholm University

I. Persson

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)

P. L. Brown

Rio Tinto

Christian Ekberg

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Energy and Material

Inorganic Chemistry

0020-1669 (ISSN) 1520-510X (eISSN)

Vol. 62 30 12038-12049

Subject Categories

Inorganic Chemistry

Materials Chemistry

DOI

10.1021/acs.inorgchem.3c01513

PubMed

37477287

More information

Latest update

3/7/2024 9