The high-pressure lithium–palladium and lithium–palladium–hydrogen systems

The lithium–palladium and lithium–palladium–hydrogen systems are investigated at high pressures at and above room temperature. Two novel lithium–palladium compounds are found below [Formula: see text] . An ambient temperature phase is tentatively assigned as [Formula: see text] , with [Formula: see text] Å at 8.64 GPa, isostructural with [Formula: see text] . The other phase occurs at high-temperature and is [Formula: see text] , [Formula: see text] Å at 3.88 GPa and 200 [Formula: see text] , similar to [Formula: see text] , which is also known at high pressure. The presence of hydrogen in the system results in an [Formula: see text] structure with [Formula: see text] Å at 9.74 GPa. This persists up to [Formula: see text] , the highest pressure studied. Below [Formula: see text] an fcc phase with a large unit cell, [Formula: see text] Å at 0.39 GPa, is also observed in the presence of hydrogen. On heating the hydrogen containing system at 4 GPa the [Formula: see text] phases persists to the melting point of lithium. In both systems melting the lithium results in the loss of crystalline diffraction from palladium containing phases. This is attributed to dissolution of the palladium in the molten lithium, and on cooling the palladium remains dispersed.