Solid solutions, defect

Ghosh, S.K., "Portland Cement Phases Polymorphism, Solid Solution, Defect Structure, and Hydraulicity," Advances in Cement Technology, ed. S.K. Ghosh, Pergamon Press, New York, 1983, pp. 289-305. 

An effect which is frequently encountered in oxide catalysts is that of promoters on the activity. An example of this is the small addition of lidrium oxide, Li20 which promotes, or increases, the catalytic activity of dre alkaline earth oxide BaO. Although little is known about the exact role of lithium on the surface structure of BaO, it would seem plausible that this effect is due to the introduction of more oxygen vacancies on the surface. This effect is well known in the chemistry of solid oxides. For example, the addition of lithium oxide to nickel oxide, in which a solid solution is formed, causes an increase in the concentration of dre major point defect which is the Ni + ion. Since the valency of dre cation in dre alkaline earth oxides can only take the value two the incorporation of lithium oxide in solid solution can only lead to oxygen vacaircy formation. Schematic equations for the two processes are... 

The variations of dielectric constant and of the tangent of the dielectric-loss angle with time provide information on the mobility and concentration of charge carriers, the dissociation of defect clusters, the occurrence of phase transitions and the formation of solid solutions. Techniques and the interpretation of results for sodium azide are described by Ellis and Hall [372]. 

Doping of solid reactant involves the introduction of a controlled amount of an impurity into solid solution in the host lattice. Such impurities can be selected to cause the generation or destruction of those electronic or structural defects which participate in the rate process of interest. Thus, the influence of the additive on kinetic behaviour can provide evidence concerning the mechanism of reaction [46,47]. Even if the... 

Now, suppose that we have a solid solution of two (2) elemental solids. Would the point defects be the same, or not An easy way to visualize such point defects is shown in the following diagram, given as 3.1.3. on the next page. It is well to note here that homogeneous lattices usually involve metals or solid solutions of metals (alloys) in contrast to heterogeneous lattices which involve compounds such as ZnS. 

Extrinsic Defects Extrinsic defects occur when an impurity atom or ion is incorporated into the lattice either by substitution onto the normal lattice site or by insertion into interstitial positions. Where the impurity is aliovalent with the host sublattice, a compensating charge must be found within the lattice to pre-serve elec-troneutality. For example, inclusion of Ca in the NaCl crystal lattice results in the creation of an equal number of cation vacancies. These defects therefore alter the composition of the solid. In many systems the concentration of the dopant ion can vary enormously and can be used to tailor specific properties. These systems are termed solid solutions and are discussed in more detail in Section 25.1.2. 

Li et al. (2000) have employed nanometer scale analysis in a FEG-TEM operating at 200 kV to distinguish between true GP zones in an Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy and GP zone-like defects caused by electron beam irradiation in the TEM. They studied an Al-6.58Zn-2.33Mg-2.40Cu (wt%) alloy, in which it is well known that the decomposition of supersaturated solid solutions takes place via the formation of GP zones, using conventional techniques to produce thin foil specimens of aged material. 

Alkaline earth oxides (AEO = MgO, CaO, and SrO) doped with 5 mol% Nd203 have been synthesised either by evaporation of nitrate solutions and decomposition, or by sol-gel method. The samples have been characterised by chemical analysis, specific surface area measurement, XRD, CO2-TPD, and FTIR spectroscopy. Their catalytic properties in propane oxidative dehydrogenation have been studied. According to detailed XRD analyses, solid solution formation took place, leading to structural defects which were agglomerated or dispersed, their relative amounts depending on the preparation procedure and on the alkaline-earth ion size match with Nd3+. Relationships between catalyst synthesis conditions, lattice defects, basicity of the solids and catalytic performance are discussed. 

At variance with the evaporated samples, Am and did not change much for the sol-gel ones, in spite of the difference between AE cation radii size (Fig. lb, c). It can be suggested that the sol-gel method succeeded in better introduction of Nd into a solid solution (supported by the TPD results) which also depended to a lower extent on the cation radii size match. The increase of the lattice anisotropy AO (Fig. Id) and the trend of the local strain values to decrease or remain about constant (Fig. lc) indicated that there was competition between disorder sources of different nature dispersed lattice defects and Nd3+ agglomerates. 

When in solid solution in the solid state, an impurity will alter the crystallinity by introducing impurity defects into the crystal lattice, thereby changing the thermodynamic and other physical properties of the solid, including the solubility and dissolution rate [2,37]. Prolonged equilibration of the solid state with the saturated solution, however, usually leads to recrystallization of the solute and to a consequent return of the crystallinity and the measured solubility of the solid state to that of the pure, highly crystalline solid. 

It is important that the copper is in the monovalent state and incorporated into the silver hahde crystals as an impurity. Because the Cu+ has the same valence as the Ag+, some Cu+ will replace Ag+ in the AgX crystal, to form a dilute solid solution Cu Agi- X (Fig. 2.6d). The defects in this material are substitutional CuAg point defects and cation Frenkel defects. These crystallites are precipitated in the complete absence of light, after which a finished glass blank will look clear because the silver hahde grains are so small that they do not scatter light. 

Many alloys are substitutional solid solutions, well-studied examples being copper-gold and copper-nickel. In both of these examples, the alloy has the same crystal structure as both parent phases, and the metal atoms simply substitute at random over the available metal atom sites (Fig. 4.4a). The species considered to be the defect is clearly dependent upon which atoms are in the minority. 

This type of defect equilibrium treatment has been used extensively to model the defect chemistry and non-stoichiometry of inorganic substances and has the great advantage that it easily takes several simultaneous defect equilibria into account [22], On the other hand, the way the mass action laws are normally used they are focused on partial thermodynamic properties and not on the integral Gibbs energy. The latter is often preferred in other types of thermodynamic analyses. In such cases the following solid solution approach is an alternative. 

Tsoga A, Naoumidis A, and Stover D. Total electrical conductivity and defect structure of Zr02-Ce02-Y203-Gd203 solid solutions. Solid State Ionics 2000 135 403M09. 

The most important application to be considered under this heading is the calculation of intrinsic defect concentrations in dilute solid solutions. If the solution is so dilute that only the leading terms in the various cluster expansions need be retained then the results required are slight generalizations of those above and follow at once from the notation for the general results. For example, the equilibrium concentration of vacancies in a dilute solution of a single solute, s, is found from Eqs. (74a) and (75) to be... 

Another defect problem to which the ion-pair theory of electrolyte solutions has been applied is that of interactions to acceptor and donor impurities in solid solution in germanium and silicon. Reiss73>74 pointed out certain difficulties in the Fuoss formulation. His kinetic approach to the problem gave results numerically very similar to that of the Fuoss theory. A novel aspect of this method was that the negative ions were treated as randomly distributed but immobile while the positive ions could move freely. 

The Mossbauer effect, although not a substitute for other analytical methods such as x-ray diffraction, can be used to obtain several kinds of structural information about solids. In favorable cases, it is possible to obtain rather detailed information about the electronic configuration of atoms and the local symmetry of their sites by measuring the isomer shift and quadrupole splitting. If more than one valence state of a given atom is present, a semiquantitative determination of the amount of each kind is possible. In solid solutions, the amount of local or long range order can be estimated, and in certain defect structures the relation between the active atoms and the defects can be studied. 

---