Structural crystallography of inorganic oxysalts / Структурная кристаллография неорганических оксисолей

Inorganic oxysalts represent one of the most important and widespread groups of inorganic compounds. They constitute more than half of the mineral species known today, they form in the environment around us, their structure and properties determine a wide range of natural and technological processes. This book deals with the crystallography of inorganic oxysalts, i.e. with a description of the organization of atoms in their crystal structures. The world of inorganic oxysalts is so diverse that a systematic and adequate description of this diversity seems to be almost impossible. The imagination and knowledge of structural crystallographers are very often restricted to their own objects of study. They work out the structure solution (sometimes easy, sometimes diffi cult), produce crystallographic information fi les (CIF) and leave the structure aside. The broad view and structure correlations are often neglected, leaving an important gap in our understanding of nature. The essential part of the book is devoted to various approaches and techniques used in the description of the structural architecture and classifi cation of inorganic oxysalts. For this purpose, the author will use various topological theories such as graph theory, tilings, nets, space partitions, etc. Of course, this part of the book is rather subjective since it represents sometimes personally elaborated (and thus favorite) author’s techniques. However, the author has tried to include into consideration all useful and interesting ideas that he has met in the literature. Chapter 1 contains a very short listing of basic facts concerning geometrical parameters and the history of structural classifi cation of inorganic oxysalts. <...>