Crystal structure of the uranyl arsenate mineral hügelite, Pb~2~(UO~2~)~3~O~2~(AsO~4~)~2~(H~2~O)~5~, revisited: a correct unit cell, twinning and hydrogen bonding

Revisiting the structure of uranyl arsenate mineral hugelite provided some corrections to the available structural data. The previous twinning model (by reticular merohedry) in hugelite has been corrected. Twinning of the monoclinic unit cell [a = 7.0189 (7) A, b = 17.1374 (10) A, c = 8.1310 (10) A and β = 108.904 (10)°], which can be expressed as a mirror in [100], leads to a pseudo-orthorhombic unit cell (a = 7.019 A, b = 17.137 A, c = 61.539 A and β = 90.02°), which is eight times larger, with respect to the unit-cell volume, than a real cell. Moreover, the unit cell of chosen here and the unit cell given by the previous structure description both lead to the same supercell. A new structure refinement undertaken on an untwinned crystal of hugelite resulted in R = 4.82% for 12 864 reflections with Iobs > 3σ(I) and GOF = 1.12. The hydrogen-bonding scheme has been proposed for hugelite for the first time.