Intense Turquoise Colors of Apatite-Type Compounds with Mn5+ in Tetrahedral Coordination

Published

February 1, 2016

Author(s)

Elena A. Medina, Jun Li, Judith K. Stalick, M. A. Subramanian

Abstract

The solid solutions of chlorapatite compounds Ba₅Mn_3-xV_xO₁₂Cl (x=0-3.0) and Ba₅Mn_3-xP_xO₁₂Cl (x=0-3.0) have been synthesized through solid state reactions and Pechini or sol-gel method using citric acid. The colors of the samples change from white (x=3.0) through turquoise (x=1.5) to dark green (x=0) with increasing amount of manganese. Optical measurements reveal that the origin of the color is presumably a combination of d-d transitions of Mn⁵⁺ and cation-anion charge transfer from transition metals to oxygens. Near IR reflectance measurements indicate that synthesized compounds are promising materials for "cool pigments" applications. Magnetic measurements verify that manganese has two unpaired electrons and exhibits 5+ oxidation state. The IR spectra change systematically with sample compositions and the fingerprint region (700 cm^-1 to 1100 cm^-1) indicates characteristic bands belonging to (MnO₄)^{3-, (VO₄)}u3-^ functional groups. Structure refinements using neutron data confirm that Mn⁵⁺ and V⁵⁺ and P⁵⁺ cations occupy the tetrahedral sites in the apatite structure.

Citation

Solid State Sciences

Volume

52

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

Inorganic pigments, apatite-type structure, synthesis

Citation

Medina, E. , Li, J. , Stalick, J. and Subramanian, M. (2016), Intense Turquoise Colors of Apatite-Type Compounds with Mn⁵⁺ in Tetrahedral Coordination, Solid State Sciences, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=919652 (Accessed October 1, 2025)