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Concept
Copper sulfide
Summary
Copper sulfides describe a family of chemical compounds and minerals with the formula CuxSy. Both minerals and synthetic materials comprise these compounds. Some copper sulfides are economically important ores.
Prominent copper sulfide minerals include Cu2S (chalcocite) and CuS (covellite). In the mining industry, the minerals bornite or chalcopyrite, which consist of mixed copper-iron sulfides, are often referred to as "copper sulfides". In chemistry, a "binary copper sulfide" is any binary chemical compound of the elements copper and sulfur. Whatever their source, copper sulfides vary widely in composition with 0.5 ≤ Cu/S ≤ 2, including numerous non-stoichiometric compounds.
The naturally occurring mineral binary compounds of copper and sulfur are listed below. Investigations of covellite (CuS) indicate that there are other metastable Cu-S phases still to be fully characterised.
CuS2, villamaninite or (Cu,Ni,Co,Fe)S2
CuS, covellite, copper monosulfide
Cu9S8 (Cu1.12S), yarrowite
Cu39S28 (Cu1.39S) spionkopite
Cu8S5 (Cu1.6S), geerite
Cu7S4 (Cu1.75S), anilite
Cu9S5 (Cu1.8S), digenite
Cu58S32 (Cu1.8S), roxbyite
Cu31S16 (Cu1.96S), djurleite
Cu2S, chalcocite
Copper sulfides can be classified into three groups:
Monosulfides, 1.6 ≤ Cu/S ≤ 2: their crystal structures consist of isolated sulfide anions that are closely related to either hcp or fcc lattices, without any direct S-S bonds. The copper ions are distributed in a complicated manner over interstitial sites with both trigonal as well as distorted tetrahedral coordination and are rather mobile. Therefore, this group of copper sulfides shows ionic conductivity at slightly elevated temperatures. In addition, the majority of its members are semiconductors.
Mixed monosulfide and disulfide compounds of copper contain both monosulfide (S2−) as well as disulfide (S2)n− anions. Their crystal structures usually consist of alternating hexagonal layers of monosulfide and disulfide anions with Cu cations in trigonal and tetrahedral interstices. CuS, for example, can be written as Cu3(S2)S.
Official source
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