Mössbauer Studies of Thermal Reaction Mechanisms in Hydrous Iron Layer Silicates

To shed light on mechanistic aspects of the thermal reactions of industrially important clay minerals such as kaolinite and Serpentine, Mössbauer studies have been made of analogous iron-containing minerals. The relatively rare iron layer-lattice silicates amesite, cronstedtite and berthierine form a series structurally related to Serpentine, and containing various substitutions of iron(II) and iron(III) in both octahedral and tetrahedral sites. Comparative Mössbauer studies of the thermal reactions of these minerals in both oxidizing and reducing conditions have been used to identify trends in the thermal stability of the various aspects of the thermal decomposition mechanisms of the related economic minerals.