Copper-tin sulphides in the system Cu-Sn-S

Abstract

Copper-tin sulphides I T is well known that copper and tin form complex sulphides. In two preliminary studies, Moh (1960, 1963) identified four phases in the system Cu-Sn-S. Both Cu2SnS 3 and Cu2Sn2S 5 are on the join Cu2S-SnS 2. Cu2SnS 3 is characterized by a tetragonal-cubic transition at 780~ whereas CuESnES 5 exhibits an extensive range of solid solution between Cu2SnS 3 and SnS 2. The other two phases, CusSnS4 and CusSnS6, are stable below 600 ~ Subsequent studies suggested that Cu2SnES 5 and CusSnS4 be discarded (Wang, 1974), and seven new copper-tin sulphides were proposed:

Stability of Naturally Relevant Ternary Phases in the Cu–Sn–S System in Contact with an Aqueous Solution

“…The ternary Cu-Sn-S system and some of its most relevant pseudobinary joins have attracted a relevant interest during the 1970s, and then repeatedly studied [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. Most of these studies focused on the Cu 2 S-SnS 2 pseudobinary join, whose definitive assessment dates to Olekseyuk et al [23].…”

“…Most of these studies focused on the Cu 2 S-SnS 2 pseudobinary join, whose definitive assessment dates to Olekseyuk et al [23]. Other pseudobinary joins (Cu 2 S-SnS, Cu 2 S-Sn 2 S 3 ) were investigated by Khanafer et al [10], whereas an isotherm section at 500˝C is due to Wu et al [19].…”

“…According to the most recent studies [19,23,24], only three ternary Cu-Sn-S compounds are stable at room temperature, i.e., Cu 4 SnS 4 , Cu 2 SnS 3 and Cu 2 Sn 4 S 9 ( Figure 1). Interestingly, they all belong to the pseudobinary join Cu 2 S-SnS 2 .…”

Low thermal conductivity in ternary Cu4Sn7S16 compound

“…Among them, Cu 4 Sn 7 S 16 exhibits n-type semiconducting behavior with a large Seebeck coefficient close to À600 lV/K at room temperature (RT) [20,24]. Considering the number of atoms per unit cell and the complexity of the crystal structure, Cu 4 Sn 7 S 16 worthy of further investigation, especially in the search for new promising thermoelectric materials.…”

“…Tetrahedrites were also reported as high-efficiency absorber materials for solar energy conversion applications [12][13][14]. Motivated by these pioneering studies, we focused on the complex Cu-Sn-S ternary diagram [15][16][17] where a large family of compounds are identified like, orthorhombic Cu 4 SnS 4 [18,19], monoclinic, cubic or tetragonal Cu 2 SnS 3 [19][20][21][22], orthorhombic or tetragonal Cu 3 SnS 4 [21,22] and the more complex crystal structure Cu 4 SnS 6 [23], Cu 4 Sn 7 S 16 [18,20,24], and Cu 4 Sn 15 S 32 [25] compounds. These phases are mainly reported as p-type semiconductors, although some metallic behavior is encountered in the orthorhombic form of Cu 3 SnS 4 [21] and rhombohedral Cu 4 SnS 6 [23].…”