Ion vacancies

Crystal structure of solids. The a-crystal form of TiCla is an excellent catalyst and has been investigated extensively. In this particular crystal form of TiCla, the titanium ions are located in an octahedral environment of chloride ions. It is believed that the stereoactive titanium ions in this crystal are located at the edges of the crystal, where chloride ion vacancies in the coordination sphere allow coordination with the monomer molecules. 

Fig. 9. Schematic of a two-dimensional cross section of an AgBr emulsion grain showing the surface and formation of various point defects A, processes forming negative kink sites and interstitial silver ions B, positive kink site and C, process forming a silver ion vacancy at a lattice position and positive kink...

One feature of oxides is drat, like all substances, they contain point defects which are most usually found on the cation lattice as interstitial ions, vacancies or ions with a higher charge than dre bulk of the cations, refened to as positive holes because their effect of oxygen partial pressure on dre electrical conductivity is dre opposite of that on free electron conductivity. The interstitial ions are usually considered to have a lower valency than the normal lattice ions, e.g. Zn+ interstitial ions in the zinc oxide ZnO structure. 

Alternative mechanisms which have been proposed which involve die surface oxide ion vacancies such as... 

Voltage Cell Type Oxygen Sensor The operation of the zirconia oxygen sensor utilizes the conduction of oxygen ions by virtue of anion or oxygen ion vacancies in the crystalline lattice. " The anion vacancies are created when the... 

Little work has been carried out on the mechanism of inhibition of the corrosion. of copper in neutral solutions by anions. Inhibition occurs in solutions containing chromate , benzoate or nitrite ions. Chloride ions and sulphide ions act aggressively. There is evidence that chloride ions can be taken up into the cuprous oxide film on copper to replace oxide ions and create cuprous ion vacancies which permit easier diffusion of cuprous ions through the film, thus increasing the corrosion rate. 

The formation of the combination of defects may be described as a chemical reaction and thermodynamic equilibrium conditions may be applied. The chemical notations of Kroger-Vink, Schottky, and defect structure elements (DSEs) are used [3, 11]. The chemical reactions have to balance the chemical species, lattice sites, and charges. An unoccupied lattice site is considered to be a chemical species (V) it is quite common that specific crystal structures are only found in the presence of a certain number of vacancies [12]. The Kroger-Vink notation makes use of the chemical element followed by the lattice site of this element as subscript and the charge relative to the ideal undisturbed lattice as superscript. An example is the formation of interstitial metal M ions and metal M ion vacancies, e.g., in silver halides ... 

As the electric current passes through this system, the cathode (negative electrode) grows in thickness while the anode (positive electrode) shrinks. At the cathode, M+ ions are converted to M atoms, which results in growth of the cathode. From this observation, it is clear that the cations are primarily responsible for conductivity, and this is the result of a vacancy type of mechanism. In this case, the positive ion vacancies have higher mobility than do the vacancies that involve negative ions. 

Four solid oxide electrolyte systems have been studied in detail and used as oxygen sensors. These are based on the oxides zirconia, thoria, ceria and bismuth oxide. In all of these oxides a high oxide ion conductivity could be obtained by the dissolution of aliovalent cations, accompanied by the introduction of oxide ion vacancies. The addition of CaO or Y2O3 to zirconia not only increases the electrical conductivity, but also stabilizes the fluorite structure, which is unstable with respect to the tetragonal structure at temperatures below 1660 K. The tetragonal structure transforms to the low temperature monoclinic structure below about 1400 K and it is because of this transformation that the pure oxide is mechanically unstable, and usually shatters on cooling. The addition of CaO stabilizes the fluorite structure at all temperatures, and because this removes the mechanical instability the material is described as stabilized zirconia (Figure 7.2). 

Fig. 2-26. Localized electron levels of lattice defects and impurities in metal oxides Mi = interstitial metal ion Vm = metal ion vacancy V = oxide ion vacancy D = donor impurity A = acceptor impurity.

Lattice defects in ionic crystals are interstitial ions and ion vacancies. In crystalline sodium chloride NaCl a cation vacancy Vn - is formed by producing a surface cation NaJ, (Nal - NaJ + Vua ) this is called the Schottky defect. On the other hand, in crystalline silver chloride AgCl a pair of cation vacancy Va,. and interstitial cation Ag is formed, (Ag - Agj + ) this is called the Frenkel... 

---