Synthetic hydrocerussite, 2PbCO(3) x Pb(OH)(2), by X-ray powder diffraction.

Synthetic hydrocerussite [trilead dihydroxide dicarbonate, Pb(3)(CO(3))(2)(OH)(2)] can be easily obtained, as a white powder, by the action of carbon dioxide and water on either lead or litharge at pH 4-5. This compound is also found in lead corrosion technological products as a fine-grained phase. Ab initio crystal structure determination was carried out on X-ray powder diffraction data. The heavy-atom method and the Patterson function helped determine the crystallographic model and the atom locations. The Rietveld fitting procedure was used for the final refinement. The atomic arrangement is closely related to the structures of other lead hydroxide carbonates. The hydrocerussite structure can be viewed as a sequence of two types of layers stacked along [001]. Layer A is composed of Pb and CO(3), and layer B is composed of Pb and OH. The stacking sequence is ...BAABAA...