Abstract
The crystal structure of mercury oxalate, HgC2O4 was solved from synchrotron X-ray and neutron powder diffraction patterns. The unit cell was obtained by auto-indexing of the X-ray powder pattern, and the positions of the atoms were found using the direct method program SIRPOW92. The structure was refined by Rietveld analysis of the neutron powder diffraction data.
The unit cell is monoclinic, space group P21 with lattice parameters from the synchrotron refinement: a = 5.033(1) Å, b = 5.237(1) Å, c = 6.453(1) Å, β = 108.74(1)°, and Z = 2. The mercury atoms are bounded to the oxalate ions by two short mercury-oxygen bonds Hg–O3 = 2.10 Å and Hg–O2′ = 2.12 Å, and six longer bonds in the range 2.63 Å to 2.83 Å. The mercury-oxygen coordination polyhedron is a slightly deformed box.
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