Structure Determination and Refinement of Acid Strontium Oxalate from X-Ray and Neutron Powder Diffraction

The structure of acid strontium oxalate Sr(HC2O4)·12(C2O4)·H2O has been determined by conventional X-ray powder diffractometry. The diffraction pattern was indexed from a monoclinic unit cell with cell parameters a=6.341(1) Å, b=16.880(2) Å, c=5.7798(8) Å, and β=97.60(1)°; space group, P21/n (No. 14) with Z=4. Final (isotropic) Rietveld refinement of the neutron powder data yielded RB=4.57%, RF=2.87%, and Rwp=7.87% as conventional Rietveld parameters. Strontium is eight-fold coordinated and can be described as a distorted bicapped trigonal prism. The SrO8 polyhedra form one-dimensional chains along the c-axis by sharing edges. In contrast to all other known strontium oxalates, in this compound H2O acts as bridging ligand between two Sr atoms. SDPD-D classification (1): Sr(HC2O4)-12(C2O4)-H2O, P21/n, C1=14, Nc=42, C2=11, XC1+N/TREOR-97 & DICVOL-91, EXTRA, EQUI, SIRPOW-92 (DM), GFOURIER, FULLPROF.