Thermoelastic behavior and dehydration process of cancrinite

The high-temperature thermoelastic behavior of a natural cancrinite has been investigated by in situ single-crystal X-ray diffraction. The unit-cell volume variation as a function of temperature (T) exhibits a continuous trend up to 748 K (hydrous expansion regime). The unit-cell edges expansion clearly shows an anisotropic expansion scheme (α _a  < α _c ). At 748 K, a dehydration process takes place, and a series of unit-cell parameter measurements at constant temperature (748 K) for a period of 12 days indicate that the dehydration process continued for the entire period of time, until the cell parameters were found to be constant. After the dehydration process is completed, the structure expands almost linearly with increasing temperature up to 823 K, where a sudden broadening of the diffraction peaks, likely due to the impending decomposition, did not allow the collection of further data points. Even with a very limited temperature range for the anhydrous regime, we observed that the behavior of the two (i.e., hydrous and anhydrous) high-temperature structures is similar in terms of (1) volume thermal expansion coefficient and (2) thermoelastic anisotropy. The structure refinements based on the data collected at 303, 478 and 748 K (after the dehydration), respectively, showed a change in the mechanism of tilting of the quasi-rigid (Si,Al)O₄ tetrahedra, following the loss of H₂O molecules, ascribable to the high-temperature Na⁺ coordination environment within the cages.