ISSN 0036-0236, Russian Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, 2020, Vol. 65, No. 5, pp. 752–757. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2020.
Russian Text © The Author(s), 2020, published in Zhurnal Neorganicheskoi Khimii, 2020, Vol. 65, No. 5, pp. 679–685.
THERMODYNAMICS
OF INORGANIC COMPOUNDS
Thermal Analysis Study of Phase Transformations
of Magnesium and Calcium Methanesulfonates
D. A. Kosovaa, *, D. I. Provotorova, S. V. Kuzovchikova, and I. A. Uspenskayaa
aMoscow State University, Moscow, 119991 Russia
*e-mail: dakosova@gmail.com
Received November 15, 2019; revised December 4, 2019; accepted December 24, 2019
Abstract—Anhydrous magnesium methanesulfonate (Mg(SO3CH3)2) and calcium methanesulfonate
(Ca(SO3CH3)2) as well as hydrates Mg(SO3CH3)2 · 2H2O and Mg(SO3CH3)2 · 12H2O have been prepared
and identified. Thermal degradation of the salts in air has been studied by thermogravimetric analysis. Param-
eters of phase transformations of Ca(SO3CH3)2 and Mg(SO3CH3)2 · 2H2O observed at –62.7 and –119°С,
respectively, have been found by differential scanning calorimetry. Melting point of Mg(SO3CH3)2 · 12H2O
(45.4°С) synthesized immediately in DSC instrument because of compound instability in air has been deter-
mined. Incongruent melting has been shown for Mg(SO3CH3)2 · 12H2O.
Keywords: phase transition, melting, differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetry
DOI: 10.1134/S0036023620050125
INTRODUCTION
equilibria is to assess stability range for individual crys-
talline phases formed in the systems and to determine
the temperature and enthalpy of phase transitions of
the compounds.
To date, methanesulfonic acid production reaches
50000 tons per year and expected to grow because
environmentally benign and economic method for its
preparation in one stage in >99% yield was proposed
recently [1]. Therefore, it is of fundamental and prac-
tical interest to study the properties of methanesul-
fonic salts and systems on their basis. The correspond-
ing literature information is fragmentary [2–5] in spite
of the fact that methanesulfonic acid and its inorganic
derivatives are used in different areas [6–15]. For
example, the study of properties of magnesium and
calcium methanesulfonates and their hydrates is of
interest to solve the tasks of geochemistry and atmo-
spheric chemistry [16–22]. Methanesulfonic acid
results from oxidation of dimethyl sulfide with air oxy-
gen, which, in turn, is produced by phytoplankton
[23]. Methanesulfonic acid aerosols participate in
cloud formation [18, 19]. When deposited with atmo-
spheric precipitation on the Earth surface, methane-
sulfonates undergo degradation in soil under the
action of different microorganisms [20]. Recently,
researchers found [23] methanesulfonates and their
hydrates in ice cores in Antarctica, which contained
marked amounts of sodium, potassium, calcium, and
magnesium methanesulfonates. Therefore, it is urgent
task to study phase equilibria in the corresponding
water–salt systems because the knowledge of proper-
ties of ice cores may be used to reproduce climate
changes and ocean composition during formation of
different rocks, i.e., to solve the tasks of geothermoba-
The subjects of this study are magnesium methane-
sulfonate hydrate and anhydrous magnesium and cal-
cium methanesulfonates. The aim of this work is to
study thermochemical properties of the noted com-
pounds. It was intended to solve the following tasks: to
synthesize the compounds under study, to identify
prepared compounds, to study thermal stability of
anhydrous and hydrated compounds, and to deter-
mine parameters of phase transformations. The main
research methods are thermogravimetry (TGA) and
differential scanning calorimetry (DSC).
It is known from literature that calcium methane-
sulfonate produce no hydrates [25], while magnesium
methanesulfonate crystallizes from aqueous solutions
as Mg(SO3CH3)2 · 12H2O at ambient temperature [26]
and as Mg(SO3CH3)2 · 2H2O at 80–90°C [25], Only
structures of Mg(SO3CH3)2 · 12H2O [26, 27] and
Ca(CH3SO3)2 [28] are established unambiguously.
Methanesulfonate Mg(SO3CH3)2 · 12H2O crystallizes
in space group
and has trigonal unit cell with
R3
parameters a = 9.27 Å, b = 9.27 Å, c = 21.13 Å, γ =
120°; the data were obtained at 110 K [26, 27]. Com-
pound Ca(CH3SO3)2 has space group Pbca, orthor-
hombic unit cell with parameters a = 17.235 0.016 Å,
b = 10.08 0.01 Å, c = 9.17 0.01 Å [28].
Thermal behavior of anhydrous magnesium and
rometry [24]. The first stage in the study of phase calcium methanesulfonates in dynamic air atmo-
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