Hydrogen bonding interactions in phase A [Mg₇Si₂O₈(OH)₆] at ambient and high pressure

Neutron powder diffraction data of phase A (Mg₇Si₂O₈(OH)₆) were collected at ambient pressure and 3.2 GPa (calculated from the compressibility of phase A) from the deuterated compound, and the structure was refined using the Rietveld method. The derived crystal structure implies that hydrogen atoms occupy two distinct sites in phase A, both forming hydrogen bonds of different lengths with the same oxygen atom. This picture is supported by IR spectra, which exhibit two absorption bands at 3400 and 3515 cm^-1 corresponding to OH stretching vibrations, and proton NMR spectra, which display two peaks with equal intensities and isotropic chemical shifts of 3.7 and 5 ppm. The D-D distance [D(1)-D(2) distance] at ambient pressure was found to be 2.09 ± 0.02 Å from the neutron diffraction data and 2.09 ± 0.05 Å from the NMR spectra. At 3.2 GPa, there is no statistically significant increase in the O-D interatomic distance while the hydrogen bonding interaction D...O appears to increase for one of the hydrogen sites, D(1), which has the stronger hydrogen bonding interaction compared with the other hydrogen, D(2), at ambient pressure. The O-D bond valences, determined indirectly from the D...O distances were 0.86 and 0.91 at ambient pressure, and 0.83 and 0.90 at 3.2 GPa, for D(1) and D(2), respectively.