High pressure behavior of mascagnite from single crystal synchrotron x-ray diffraction data

High-pressure synchrotron X-ray diffraction was carried out on a single crystal of mascagnite, compressed in a diamond anvil cell. The sample maintained its crystal structure up to ~18 GPa. The volume–pressure data were fitted by a third-order Birch–Murnaghan equation of state (BM3-EOS) yielding K0 = 20.4(7) GPa, K’0 = 6.1(2), and V0 = 499(1) Å3, as suggested by the F-f plot. The axial compressibilities, calculated with BM3-EOS, were K0a = 35(3), K’0a = 7.7(7), K0b = 10(3), K’0b = 7(1), K0c = 25(1), and K’0c = 4.3(2) The axial moduli measured using a BM2-EOS and fixing K’0 equal to 4, were K0a = 52(2), K0b = 20 (1), and K0c = 29.6(4) GPa, and the anisotropic ratio of K0a:K0b:K0c = 1:0.4:0.5. The evolution of crystal lattice and geometrical parameters indicated no phase transition until 17.6 GPa. Sulphate polyhedra were incompressible and the density increase of 30% compared to investigated pressure should be attributed to the reduction of weaker hydrogen bonds. In contrast, some of them, directed along [100], were very short at room temperature, below 2 Å, and showed a very low compressibility. This configuration explains the anisotropic compressional behavior and the lowest compressibility of the a axis.