High-pressure behavior of the synthetic Ca2Sb2O7 weberite-type compound

Abstract: An in situ high-pressure X-ray diffraction study has been carried out at room temperature up to 9.23 GPa on a crystal of Ca2Sb2O7 having a weberite-2O structure synthesized by solid-state reaction. A 2nd-order Birch–Murnaghan Equation of State (EoS) was used to refine the pressure–volume data. The refinement of the unit-cell volume and of the isothermal bulk modulus at room pressure leads to: V 0 = 555.8 (1), KT 0 = 154.6 (9) GPa. Unit-cell parameters decrease gradually as a function of pressure with a bulk modulus anisotropy scheme Ka 0 > Kb 0 > Kc 0, with c being the softest direction. The compressional behavior of Ca2Sb2O7 is compared with that shown by ingersonite, Ca3MnSb4O14, a mineral showing a weberite-3T structure. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]