Observation of the new binary low temperatures compound AlV

Up to now, the binary Al-V system was only investigated at temperatures of 600 °C and above. In the course of a re-investigation of the system at 500 °C, the new compound AlV was discovered. Annealing experiments point to a decomposition temperature around 540 °C, but the respective thermal effect could not be detected in DTA experiments due to the sluggish and slow reaction. The composition of the phase was determined to be Al50.1(5)V46.9(5) by means of EPMA. In order to determine the crystal structure of the new phase, several attempts were done to prepare single crystals for single crystal XRD. Due to the poor crystallization of the phase, it was not possible to gain suitable crystals for structure determination. Indexing of the powder pattern indicates the phase to be of tetragonal symmetry (possible space group P42212) with the cell parameters a = 10.845(1) Å and c = 4.3755(2) Å. The cell determination was only tentative due to the poor crystallinity of the compound.