The structural behavior of ferric and ferrous iron in aluminosilicate glass near meta-aluminosilicate joins

Iron-57 resonant absorption Mossbauer spectroscopy was used to describe the redox relations and structural roles of Fe3+ and Fe2+ in meta-aluminosilicate glasses. Melts were formed at 1500 °C in equilibrium with air and quenched to glass in liquid H2O with quenching rates exceeding 200 °C/s. The aluminosilicate compositions were NaAlSi2O6, Ca0.5AlSi2O6, and Mg0.5AlSi2O6. Iron oxide was added in the form of Fe2O3, NaFeO2, CaFe2O4, and MgFe2O4 with total iron oxide content in the range ∼0.9 to ∼5.6 mol% as Fe2O3. The Mossbauer spectra, which were deconvoluted by assuming Gaussian distributions of the hyperfine field, are consistent with one absorption doublet of Fe2+ and one of Fe3+. From the area ratios of the Fe2+ and Fe3+ absorption doublets, with corrections for differences in recoil-fractions of Fe3+ and Fe2+, the Fe3+/ΣFe is positively correlated with increasing total iron content and with decreasing ionization potential of the alkali and alkaline earth cation. There is a distribution of hyperfine parameters from the Mossbauer spectra of these glasses. The maximum in the isomer shift distribution function of Fe3+, δFe3+, ranges from about 0.25 to 0.49 mm/s (at 298 K relative to Fe metal) with the quadrupole splitting maximum, ΔFe3+, ranging from ∼1.2 to ∼1.6 mm/s. Both δFe3+ and δFe2+ are negatively correlated with total iron oxide content and Fe3+/ΣFe. The dominant oxygen coordination number Fe3+ changes from 4 to 6 with decreasing Fe3+/ΣFe. The distortion of the Fe3+–O polyhedra of the quenched melts (glasses) decreases as the Fe3+/ΣFe increases. These polyhedra do, however, coexist with lesser proportions of polyhedra with different oxygen coordination numbers. The δFe2+ and ΔFe2+ distribution maxima at 298 K range from ∼0.95 to 1.15 mm/s and 1.9 to 2.0 mm/s, respectively, and decrease with increasing Fe3+/ΣFe. We suggest that these hyperfine parameter values for the most part are more consistent with Fe2+ in a range of coordination states from 4- to 6-fold. The lower δFe2+-values for the most oxidized melts are consistent with a larger proportion of Fe2+ in 4-fold coordination compared with more reduced glasses and melts.