Structure of Aqueous Lithium Tetraborate Solution

Accurate Boron Determination in Tourmaline by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry: An Insight into the Boron-Mannitol Complex-Based Wet Acid Digestion Method

Tourmaline, a boron-bearing mineral, has been extensively applied as a geothermometer, provenance indicator, and fluid-composition recorder in geological studies. In this paper, the decomposition capability of an HF-HNO3-mannitol mixture for a tourmaline sample was investigated in detail for the first time, and a wet acid digestion method based on the boron-mannitol complex for accurate boron determination in tourmaline by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) was proposed. With a digestion temperature of 140 °C, tourmaline samples of 25 mg (±0.5 mg) can be completely decomposed by a ternary mixture, which consisted of 0.6 mL of HF, 0.6 mL of HNO3, and 0.7 mL of 2% mannitol (wt.), via a continuous heating treatment of 36 h. Following gentle evaporation at 100 °C, the sample residues were re-dissolved using 2 mL of 40% HNO3 solution (wt.) and diluted to about 2.0 × 105-fold by a two-step method using 2% HNO3 solution (wt.). The boron contents in a batch of parallel tourmaline samples were then determined by ICP-MS, and results showed that the boron concentration levels were in a range of 3.20-3.44% with determination RSDs less than 4.0% (n = 5). It was found that the boron concentrations obtained at the mass of 10B were comparable with results from the measurements at the mass of 11B. This revealed that the usage of 2% mannitol with a quantity as high as 0.7 mL in this developed approach did not exhibit significant effect on the quantification accuracy of boron at the mass of 11B. It was also found that the processes including fluoride-forming prevention and fluoride decomposition deteriorated the boron-reserving efficiency of mannitol for tourmaline, causing the averaged boron contents to vary from 2.25% to 3.57% (n = 5). Furthermore, the stability of the boron-mannitol complex under 185 °C by applying the laboratory high pressure-closed digestion method was evaluated, which showed that there existed a 60.36% loss of boron compared to that under 140 °C by using this proposed approach. For this ternary mixture, the tourmaline decomposing efficiency was found to be weakened prominently using 100 °C as the digestion temperature, and tourmaline powders can be observed even after 72 h of continuous heating with B contents within 1.09-1.23% (n = 5). To assess the accuracy of this developed method, the boron recovery of anhydrous lithium tetraborate was studied. It was found that the boron recoveries were within 96.59-102.12% (RSD < 1%, n = 5), demonstrating the accuracy and reliability of this proposed method, which exhibits advantages of high B preserving efficiency, and giving concentration information of both B and trace elements simultaneously. By applying such a boron-mannitol complex-based wet acid digestion method, the chemical composition of boron and trace elements in three tourmaline samples from different pegmatites were quantified, which provided valuable information to distinguish regional deposits and the associated evolution stages.

Structures and bonding characteristics of KCl(H2O)n clusters with n = 1-10 based on density functional theory

Aqueous inorganic salt solutions play a prominent role in both physiological and chemical experiments, and significant attention has been directed toward understanding the mechanisms underlying salt dissolution. In our effort to elucidate the hydration process of potassium chloride, we employed a comprehensive genetic algorithm to explore the structures of KCl(H2O)n (n = 1-10). A series of stable structures were identified by high-level ab initio optimization and single-point energy calculations with a zero-point energy correction. An analysis of the probability distribution of KCl(H2O)1-10 revealed that clusters with high probability at low temperatures exhibit reduced probabilities at higher temperatures, while others become more prevalent. When n = 1-9, the contact ion pair configurations or partially dissociated structures dominate in the system, and the probability distribution plot shows that the proportion of the solvent-separated ion pair (SSIP) structures of KCl(H2O)n is very small, while the SSIP configuration in KCl(H2O)10 becomes a stable structure with increasing temperature. The results from natural bond orbital analysis reveal a stronger interaction between chloride ions and water molecules. These findings provide valuable insights for a more comprehensive understanding of the intricacies of potassium chloride dissolution in water.

Ion hydration and association in aqueous potassium tetrahydroxyborate solutions

Potassium tetrahydroxyborate solution is a significant material in the borate solution family, but there is limited knowledge about hydration structures and interactions of K⁺, [B(OH)₄^-], and water. In this study, the X-ray diffraction measurements of potassium tetrahydroxyborate solutions have been made. The experimental structure factors are subjected to Empirical Potential Structure Refinement (EPSR) modeling to reveal the details of ion hydration and association in the aqueous solutions. This study shows that the O(W)-O(W) distance of water in the studied solutions ranges from 2.82 to 2.76 Å with a coordination number that ranges from 4.7 ± 1.4 to 3.1 ± 1.3 when the value of the water-salt molar ratio (WSR) is decreased from 30 to 6. The addition of ions slightly affects the tetrahedral structure of water even when the concentration of ions is high. The first hydration distance of K⁺ remained at ∼2.67 Å, whereas the value of the coordination number (CN) decreased from 5.4 ± 1.3 to 3.9 ± 1.5 when the concentration of the borate solution was increased. The hydration ability of K⁺ was weak and almost did not have a fixed local hydration structure. The pair distribution function (PDF) of g_B-O(W)(r) shows that [B(OH)₄^-] has a broad hydration distance from 2.9 to 5.4 Å because of the complex interactive relationship between K⁺, [B(OH)₄^-] and water. There is a competitive hydration between K⁺ and [B(OH)₄^-]. Both the X-ray diffraction and DFT-based calculations confirm that the main species is monodentate contact ion pairs when WSR = 30, bidentate contact ion pairs when WSR = 14, and triple contact ion pairs when WSR = 6. These results will provide a new understanding about potassium tetrahydroxyborate solution.