• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
• /
• v.32 no.3
• /
• pp.151-162
• /
• 2019

Todorokite, a tunnel-structured manganese oxide, can contain cations within the relatively large nanopores created by the $3{\times}3$ Mn octahedra. Because todorokite is poorly crystalline and found as aggregates mixed with other phases of Mn oxides in nature, the coordination structure of cations in the nanopores is challenging to fully characterize in experiment. In the current article, we report the atomistic coordination structures of $Mg^{2+}$ ions in todorokite tunnel nanopores using the classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. In experiment, $Mg^{2+}$ is known to occupy the center of the nanopores. In our MD simulations, 60 % of $Mg^{2+}$ ions were located at the center of the nanopores; 40 % of the ions were found at the corners. All $Mg^{2+}$ located at the center formed the six-fold coordination with water molecules, just as the ion in bulk aqueous solution. $Mg^{2+}$ ions at the corners also formed the six-fold coordination with not only water molecules but also Mn octahedral surface oxygens. The mean squared displacements were calculated to examine the dynamic features of $Mg^{2+}$ ions in the one-dimensional (1D) nanopores. Our MD simulations indicate that the dynamic features of water molecules and the cations observed in bulk aqueous solution are lost in the 1D nanopores of todorokite.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
• /
• v.31 no.1
• /
• pp.13-22
• /
• 2018

Aluminum silicates ($Al_2SiO_5$) undergo phase transitions among kyanite, andalusite, and sillimanite depending on temperature and pressure conditions. The minerals are often used as an important indicator of the degree of metamorphism for certain metamorphic rocks. In this study, we have applied classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and density functional theory (DFT) to the aluminum silicates. We examined the crystal structures as a function of applied pressure and the corresponding stabilities based on calculated enthalpies at each pressure. In terms of the lattice parameters, both methods showed that the volume decreases as the pressure increases as observed in the experiment. In particular, DFT results differed from experimental results by much less than 1%. As to the relative stability, however, both methods showed different levels of accuracy. In the MD simulations, a transition pressure at which the relative stability between two minerals reverse could not be determined because the enthalpies were insensitive to the applied pressure. On the other hand, in DFT calculations, the relative stability relation among the three minerals was consistent with experiment, although the transition pressure was strongly dependent on the choice of the electronic exchange-correlation functional.