Abstract
Molecular mechanics simulations using Cerius2 combined with X-ray diffraction and supported with vibrational spectroscopy have been used to investigate the layered structure of vanadyl phosphate VOPO4 intercalated with ethanol. This intercalated structure exhibits certain degree of disorder, which affects the diffraction diagram and obstructs the conventional structure analysis based on diffraction methods only. Present structure analysis is focused to the crystal packing in the interlayer space and layer stacking in the intercalate. The bilayer arrangement of ethanol molecules in the interlayer has been found, giving the basal spacing d = 13.21 Å, experimental d-value obtained from X-ray diffraction is 13.17 Å. One half from the total number of CH3CH2OH molecules is anchored with their oxygens to VOPO4 layers to complete vanadium octahedra and their orientation is not very strictly defined. The second half of ethanoles is linked with hydrogen bridges to the anchored etahanoles and sometimes also to the layer oxygens. Positions and orientations of these unachored ethanoles with respect to VOPO4 layers exhibit certain degree of disorder, resulting in the disorder in layer stacking. Molecular mechanics simulations revealed the character of this displacement disorder in layer stacking and enabled to determine the components of the displacement vector.
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Čapková, P., Janeba, D., Beneš, L. et al. Molecular Mechanics Simulations in Structure Analysis of Intercalate VOPO4·2CH3CH2OH. J Mol Model 4, 150–157 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/s0089480040150
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s0089480040150