Structural chemistry of anhydrous sodium silicates - a review

Sodium silicates are of considerable importance for many fields of inorganic chemistry and applied mineralogy, being either raw materials for synthesis or already finished products. In addition to their industrial relevance they have also been studied intensively because of their interesting physico-chemical properties including high ion-exchange capacity and selectivity or two-dimensional sodium diffusion and conductivity. Furthermore, the structural chemistry of crystalline sodium silicates offers the crystallographer challenging tasks such as polytypism, polymorphism, temperature and/or pressure-dependent phase transitions, pseudo-symmetry, complex twinning phenomena as well as incommensurately modulated structures. Many of these structural problems have been solved only recently, although in some cases they have been known for several decades. This article will provide an overview on the structurally characterized sodium silicates and their fascinating crystallochemical characteristics.