Growth and structural characterization of Tutton salt mixed of Co and Ni

Abstract

The family of crystals known as Tutton's salts plays a significant role in physics and chemistry; because they are used in phase transition studies and to define models applied to materials. The importance of salts in material engineering is recent, as in applications in adiabatic degaussing refrigerators and solid-state anodes. Studies of the (NH4)2Ni(SO4)2∙6H2O and (NH4)2Co(SO4)2·6H2O are widely found in literature but do not occur for the mixture of both. In this research, we studied mixed crystals of the general chemical formula (NH4)2NixCo(1-x)(SO4)2·6H2O with x ranging from 0 to 1, utilizing x = 0.7. The objective is to study the modifications caused owing to the ion's weighted composition in the formation of the solid solution and compare it with the pure salts. For this, the growth of these crystals is discussed based on ICP-OES results and optical microscopy concerning the crystal growth theory. The discussion also relates the Raman spectra of the salts with molecular changes according to structured group theory, qualitatively characterizing its crystalline structure. Finally, a Single-crystal X-ray study solves and confirms the structure of pure salts and mixed salt, quantitatively characterizing their crystal structure.