Thermodynamic properties and crystal growth behavior of the hashemite (BaSO4-BaCrO4) solid solution

Molecular simulations indicate that there is a less pronounced step energy difference between bounding steps of growth islands for hashemite than for barite, which may partially explain the difference in growth anisotropy of the two minerals. Differences in adsorption energies to the corners of growth islands, which are the limiting steps of growth, do not seem to be high enough to explain differences in growth anisotropies. Therefore, kinetic effects or differences in the interfacial free energies of the two minerals may serve as an additional explanation for differences in the growth behavior.