Temperature- and pH-dependent morphology and FT-IR analysis of magnesium carbonate hydrates

Various morphologies of magnesium carbonate hydrates have been synthesized by carefully adjusting the reaction temperature and pH value of the initial reaction solution in the precipitation process. At lower temperatures (from room temperature to 328 K) and lower pH values (variation with the reaction temperature), magnesium carbonate hydrates are prone to display needlelike morphology, and the axis diameter of the particles decreases with the increase of reaction temperature and pH value. With the further increase of the reaction temperature (333-368 K) and pH value, the sheetlike crystallites become the preferred morphology, and at higher temperatures and pH values, these crystallites tend to assemble into layerlike structures with diverse morphologies, such as spherical-like particles with rosette-like structure and cakelike particles built from sheetlike structure. Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra show that these various morphologies are closely related to their compositions. The needlelike magnesium carbonate hydrate has a formula of MgCO3.xH2O, in which the value x is greatly affected by the experimental conditions, whereas with the morphological transformation from needlelike to sheetlike structure, their corresponding compositions also change from MgCO3.xH2O to Mg5(CO3)4(OH)2.4H2O in the interval of 328-333 K.