ALBERT

Description: A mineral intermediate between sillimanite and mullite, tentatively designated as "sillimullite," was studied by electron microprobe analyses and single-crystal X-ray diffraction methods. The chemical compositions derived from the microprobe results and the crystal-structure refinement are Al 7.84 Fe 0.18 Ti 0.03 Mg 0.03 Si 3.92 O 19.96 and Al 8.28 Fe 0.20 Si 3.52 O 19.76 (Fe is Fe 3+ ) corresponding to x -values of 0.02 and 0.12, respectively, in the solid-solution series Al 8+4x Si 4–4x O 20–2x assigning Fe 3+ , Ti, and Mg to the Al site. The composition derived from microprobe analysis is very close to a stoichiometric sillimanite (with Fe 3+ ,Ti, and Mg assigned to Al sites), while the composition derived from diffraction data is midway between sillimanite and Si-rich mullites. The discrepancy is assumed to be caused by the occurrence of amorphous nano-sized SiO 2 inclusions in the aluminosilicate phase not affecting the diffraction data but detected in the microprobe analysis. "Sillimullite" crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Pnam with a = 7.5127(4), b = 7.6823(4), c = 5.785(3) Å, V = 333.88(4) Å 3 , Z = 1. It has a complete Si/Al ordering at tetrahedral sites like sillimanite but with neighboring double chains of SiO 4 and AlO 4 tetrahedra being offset by 1/2 unit cell parallel to c relative to each other causing the change of the space-group setting from Pbnm (sillimanite) to Pnam . Difference Fourier calculations and refinements with anisotropic displacement parameters revealed the formation of oxygen vacancies and triclusters as known in the crystal structures of mullite. Final refinements converged at R 1 = 5.9% for 1024 unique reflections with F o 〉 4( F o ). Fe was found to reside predominantly in the octahedral site and with minor amounts in one of the T* sites. Mg and Ti were not considered in the refinements. The crystal studied here is considered to represent a new mineral intermediate between sillimanite and mullite, named "sillimullite."