Structural features of zinc hydroxyfluoride

Zinc hydroxyfluoride (ZnOHF), obtained by coprecipitation of a zinc salt in aqueous HF, exhibits a variable stoichiometry Zn(OH)_2−xF_x, where x is tuneable from 0.63 to 0.87 by controlling the pH of the solution. The structure was determined from Rietveld refinements using X-ray powder diffraction data. Crystallizing with the orthorhombic symmetry (SG : Pna2₁), the ZnOHF-type structure exhibits two different anionic sites. A bond valence analysis shows that fluorine exclusively occupies the anionic site that has shorter contacts to zinc. This site is split into two partially occupied sites, one corresponding to the position of a fluoride ion and the other to the position of a hydroxide ion. Bond valence calculations show that the split site model gives a more accurate picture of the local coordination of the anions on this site.