• journal_title：The Canadian Mineralogist
• Contributor：Ralph Rowe ; Joel D. Grice ; Glenn Poirier ; Chris J. Stanley ; László Horváth
• Publisher：Mineralogical Association of Canada
• Date：2011-
• Format：text/html
• Language：en
• Identifier：10.3749/canmin.49.2.651
• journal_abbrev：Can Mineral
• issn：0008-4476
• volume：49
• issue：2
• firstpage：651
• section：Articles

Nisnite, ideally Ni₃Sn, was found during a re-examination of heazlewoodite crystals in rodingite samples from the Jeffrey mine, Asbestos, Quebec. It occurs as bronze-colored metallic, striated, blocky and square to rectangular tabular crystals of up to 100 μm in length, with groupings of ≤1 mm growing on heazlewoodite. Crystal groupings exhibit a boxwork-like habit. Reflectance measurements in air gave 43.2 (470 nm), 49.1 (546 nm), 53.2 (589 nm), and 59.0% (650 nm). Minerals closely associated with nisnite are chromite, diopside, grossular, heazlewoodite and shandite. The mineral is cubic, P4/m3̅2/m, with unit-cell parameter refined using powder-diffraction data: a 3.7349(6) Å, V 52.10(3) ų, Z = 1, D_calc = 9.41 g/cm³. The average results of five and three electron-microprobe analyses on separate crystals gave Ni 57.88, Sn 40.17, sum 98.05 wt.% and Ni 59.24, Sn 41.00, sum 100.24 wt.%, corresponding to Ni_2.98Sn_1.02 on the basis of 4 apfu. The structure has been refined to an R index of 0.008% on the basis of 30 unique reflections. The structure of nisnite contains 12-coordinated Sn atoms (12 Ni) and 12-coordinated Ni atoms (8 Ni and 4 Sn). Among the three synthetic Ni₃Sn phases known, nisnite corresponds to the ccp structure that has been synthesized at high pressure and high temperature.