Speaker: Alexandra Navrotsky, University of California - Davis
Abstract: Freed from the "tyranny of equilibrium", modern synthetic solid state chemists are producing nanomaterials, metastable phases, cluster compounds, and mixed organic-inorganic materials in a wealth of structures with amazing properties. Calorimetric studies have shown that many of these polymorphs or closely related materials are in fact very similar in energy, tracing out "energy landscapes" as a function of density, crystallinity, hydration, or other parameters. This talk focuses on new experimental thermodynamic results in three classes of materials: (1) amorphous and crystalline carbonates in the CaCO3 - MgCO3 - H2O system, (2) zeolites, mesoporous silicas, and metal organic frameworks (MOF), and (3) polynuclear cluster compounds in aluminum and uranium based systems.