Electrical conductivity of alkali feldspar solid solutions at high temperatures and high pressures

The electrical conductivities of alkali feldspar solid solutions ranging in chemical composition from albite (NaAlSi3O8) to K-feldspar (KAlSi3O8) were measured at 1.0 GPa and temperatures of 873–1,173 K in a multi-anvil apparatus. The complex impedance was determined by the AC impedance spectroscopy technique in the frequency range of 0.1–106 Hz. Our experimental results revealed that the electrical conductivities of alkali feldspar solid solutions increase with increasing temperature, and the linear relationship between electrical conductivity and temperature fits the Arrhenius formula. The electrical conductivities of solid solutions increase with the increasing Na content at constant temperature. At 1.0 GPa, the activation enthalpy of solid solution series shows strong dependency on the composition, and there is an abrupt increase from the composition of Or40Ab60 to Or60Ab40, where it reaches a value of 0.96 eV. According to these results in this study, it is proposed that the dominant conduction mechanism in alkali feldspar solid solutions under high temperature and high pressure is ionic conduction. Furthermore, since the activation enthalpy is less than 1.0 eV for the alkali feldspar solid solutions, it is suggested to be a model where Na+ and K+ transport involves an interstitial mechanism for electrical conduction. The change of main charge carriers can be responsible for the abrupt increase in the activation energy for Or60Ab40. All electrical conductivity data were fitted by a general formula in order to show the dependence of activation enthalpy and pre-exponential factor on chemical composition. Combining our experimental results with the effective medium theory, we theoretically calculated the electrical conductivity of alkali feldspar granite, alkali feldspar quartz syenite, and alkali feldspar syenite with different mineral content and variable chemical composition of alkali feldspar at high temperatures at 1.0 GPa, and the calculated results are almost in agreement with previous experimental studies on silicate rocks.