Aluminium sulfide

Aluminum sulfide is a chemical compound with the formula Al₂S₃. This colorless species has an interesting structural chemistry, existing in several forms. The material is sensitive to moisture, hydrolyzing to hydrated aluminum oxides/hydroxides. This can begin when the sulfide is exposed to the atmosphere. The hydrolysis reaction generates gaseous hydrogen sulfide (H₂S).

More than six crystalline forms of aluminum sulfide are known and only some are listed below. Most of them have rather similar, wurtzite-like structures, and differ by the arrangement of lattice vacancies, which form ordered or disordered sublattices.

The β and γ phases are obtained by annealing the most stable α-Al₂S₃ phase at several hundred degrees Celsius. Compressing aluminum sulfide to 2–65 bar results in the δ phase where vacancies are arranged in a superlattice of tetragonal symmetry.

Unlike Al₂O₃, in which the Al(III) centers occupy octahedral holes, the more expanded framework of Al₂S₃ stabilizes the Al(III) centers into one third of the tetrahedral holes of a hexagonally close-packed arrangement of the sulfide anions. At higher temperature, the Al(III) centers become randomized to give a "defect wurtzite" structure. And at still higher temperatures stabilize the γ-Al₂S₃ forms, with a structure akin to γ-Al₂O₃.

Molecular derivatives of Al₂S₃ are not known. Mixed Al-S-Cl compounds are however known. Al₂Se₃ and Al₂Te₃ are also known.

Aluminum sulfide is readily prepared by ignition of the elements

This reaction is extremely exothermic and it is not necessary or desirable to heat the whole mass of the sulfur-aluminum mixture; (except possibly for very small amounts of reactants). The product will be created in a fused form; it reaches a temperature greater than 1,100 °C and may melt its way through steel. The cooled product is very hard.