A new lithium‐rich zeolitic 10‐MR zincolithosilicate MZS‐1 hydrothermally synthesized under high pressure and characterized by 3D electron diffraction

We report the structure of a new high lithium content zincolithosilicate (MZS‐1) obtained after hydrothermal treatment under high pressure from a glass precursor. After synthesis microcrystalline mixture of phases was obtained among which the main phase was unknown. Due to the sub micrometric size of the crystallites its structure was determined from precession‐assisted 3D electron diffraction measured at 100 K and refined using the dynamical theory of diffraction. More accurate lattice parameters are obtained from Rietveld refinement of synchrotron powder data collected at the ambient temperature. The characteristic framework is described at the ambient temperature using an average unit cell a0=8.57999(5) A, b0=14.12332(8) A, c0=4.96827(3) A in the space group Ccc2. The structure of the new zeolitic 10‐membered ring zincosilicate with chemical formula per unit cell (SiO2)2Zn0.408LiO(OH)2(Li,H)2.184 (Z=4) is composed of undulated silicate layers made of fused 6‐membered rings connected via vertices of (Zn,Li)O4 tetrahedra. A weak superstructure doubling the a0 parameter is observed and is explained by a Zn/Li ordering within the (Zn,Li)O4 layers.