Structural phase analysis of a sol-gel nano-crystalline lithium-mica glass-ceramic through different compositions

The current paper attempts to study the influence of chemical composition on the phase development of nano-crystalline lithium-mica glass-ceramic. For this purpose, aqueous sol-gel technique was employed to prepare the glass-ceramics. The synthesis process was accomplished using two chemical compositions of Li(1+x)Mg3AlSi3(1+x)O10+6.5xF2 and LiMg3AlSi3(1+x)O10+6xF2 at different x values along with various mass% of MgF2 inclusion. It was found that considering an optimized amount of MgF2, the specimens synthesized through a new formulation of LiMg3AlSi3(1+x)O10+6xF2 composition are more appropriate for the sol-gel synthesis method, especially because of intensifying the lithium-mica precipitation and also omission of the secondary phase (i.e. lithium aluminum silicate). The results also indicated that any deviation from the optimized amount of MgF2 (8%) would cause degradation in the intensity of the precipitated lithium-mica, following the nucleation treatment.