The precipitation of alkaline-earth metal polymetaphosphate hydrate powders from aqueous solution. Nucleation and crystal growth processes,final precipitate compositions and crystal sizes

The precipitation of barium, strontium, calcium and magnesium polymetaphosphate hydrates was studied from aqueous solutions of initial metal salt concentrations from 0.001 to 3 M at 20 °C; equivalent sodium polymetaphosphate solutions were added to the alkaline-earth metal chloride solutions. Precipitate compositions were determined by chemical analysis, paper chromatography, potentiometric analysis, thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis and infra-red spectrophotometry; final crystallite morphologies and sizes were studied by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray powder diffraction. Nucleation rates and nucleus numbers (at the end of the induction periods) were very high; crystal numbers varied from 10¹⁴ to 10¹⁵ at the critical concentrations to above 10¹⁷ per 1. solution. Crystal growth rates were also very high and varied as the fourth power of the initial metal salt concentration. High molecular-weight metal polymetaphosphate hydrates were precipitated from the more dilute solutions (0.001 to 0.025 M) while increasing amounts of the more soluble intermediate and low molecular-weight products were precipitated from the more concentrated solutions. Washing with cold water removed the tri- and tetralinear and cyclic phosphate products. The magnesium salts were not precipitated even from 3 M aqueous solutions. The precipitates from aqueous (NaPO₃(I))_n (n = 12) solutions had the compositions (BaP₂O₆ · 2.5 H₂O)₆, (SrP₂O₆ · 3 H₂O)_n and (CaP₂O₆ · 4 H₂O)_n while the magnesium salt precipitate from 20 percent aqueous acetone solution had the composition (MgP₂O₆ · 4 H₂O)_n, the precipitate n values varied from 19 to 13. The precipitates from aqueous (NaPO₃(II))_n (n = 20) solutions contained 0.5n to n additional adsorbed water molecules; these precipitate n values varied in turn from 40 to 26. The final precipitate powders consisted of ‘spherules’ of highly microcrystalline or amorphous polymer glass; the spherule diameters were about 0.2 μm at the critical concentrations and decreased to below 0.05 μm with increasing solution concentrations.