The results of structural studies of the synthetic analog of the radtkeite mineral Hg
3S
2Cl
1.00I
1.00 are analyzed. The crystal structure of the compound has been refined; the unit cell parameters are
a
m = 16.827(4)

,
b
m = 9.117(1)

,
c
m = 13.165(5)

,

= 130.17(2)°,
V = 1543.3(8)
3, space group
C2/
m,
Z = 8,
R = 0.0527. A possible transition
a
0

=
a
m;
b
0

=
a
m + 2
c
m;
c
0

= –
b
m to the pseudo-orthorhombic
F cell previously determined for radtkeite, where one of the angles (
0

) is slightly different from 90° (89.55°), has been found. Each sulfur atom in the structure is bonded to three mercury atoms, forming SHg
3 umbrellas with distances 2.240(6)

–2.474(8)

and angles HgSHg 94.7(2)°–102.9(2)°. The SHg
3 fragments are linked through Hg vertices to form corrugated [Hg
12S
8]


layers. The halogen atoms lie inside and between the [Hg
12S
8]


layers; the distances are Hg-Cl and Hg-I 2.783(7)

, 2.961(7)

, and 3.083(4)

–3.311(3)

, respectively.
Keywords mercury chalcogen halides - mercury minerals - crystal structure - X-ray diffraction analysis
Original Russian Text Copyright © 2004 by N. V. Pervukhina, S. V. Borisov, S. A. Magarill, D. Yu. Naumov, V. I. Vasiliev, and B. G. Nenashev
Translated from Zhurnal Strukturnoi Khimii, Vol. 45, No. 4, pp. 755–758, July–August, 2004.
This revised version was published online in April 2005 with a corrected cover date.