Silicate Structure of

Ceramics
Lecture 5

Ceramics and Composites Technology

MM451 Course (3 Credits)
B.Tech- MME
4th year- 2nd Sem
2022-2023
Dr. G. Ramya Sree
Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
NIT Warangal
Silicate Structure
• Silicate Structure → Silicon + Oxygen atoms

• Bridging oxygens → 1 O + 2 Si
• Non bridging oxygens → 1 O + 1 Si

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Silicate Structure
• Silicate Structure → Silicon + Oxygen atoms

• Bridging oxygens → 1 O + 2 Si
• Non bridging oxygens → 1 O + 1 Si

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Silicate Structure
• Silicate Structure → Silicon + Oxygen atoms

• Natural material in earth crust

• Clay, Feldspar, Mica

• low cost, availability and

special properties
• glass, portland cement and bricks
• Electrical insulative materials

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Silicate Structure
• Silicate Structure → Silicon + Oxygen atoms

• Bridging oxygens → 1 O + 2 Si
• Non bridging oxygens → 1 O + 1 Si

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Silicate Structure
• Silicate Structure → Silicon + Oxygen atoms

• Bridging oxygens → 1 O + 2 Si
• Non bridging oxygens → 1 O + 1 Si

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Silicate Structure
• The basic building block of the silicate is the
silicate ( ) tetrahedron.

• Arrangement of tetrahedron → 4 oxygen atoms

surround a central silicon atom.

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Silicate Structure
• Silicate Structure → Silicon + Oxygen atoms

• Bridging oxygens → 1 O + 2 Si
• Non bridging oxygens → 1 O + 1 Si

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Silicate Structure

• The Si - O bond in the structure is about 50% covalent and 50%

ionic according to calculations from Pauling's equation.
• The radius ratio of Si - O bond is 0.32, which is in the tetrahedral co-
ordination range for stable - ion close packing because of the small
highly charged ion,
strong bonding forces are created within tetrahedrons, and as a
result the units are normally joined corner to corner and rarely
edge to edge.
• With a bond strength of 1, oxygen ions are co-ordinated to only 2 silicon
atoms in silica.
• The tetrahedra can be arranged in co-ordination compounds such
that the corners are shared in several ways. There are 4 general ways)

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Silicate Island structure

• Fe2+, Mg2+ + →
• Olivine silicate.

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Silicate Chain Structure

• 2 corners + 2 corners →

mineral enstatite
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Silicate sheet Structure

• 3 corners + 3 corners →

mineral Kaolinite
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Silicate sheet Structure

• 3 corners + 3 corners →

mineral Kaolinite
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Thank You

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