Base materials with high potential

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Very good materials

Best of the best

Best diamondoids

  • C – diamond and its polymorphs including hexagonal diamond aka lonsdaleite
  • SiC – moissanite – high heat resistance
  • Si – pure silicon (eventually)
  • BN – boron nitride (cubic c-BN and hexagonal w-BN) – (boron is not super extremely abundant and available)
  • B4C – boron carbide – same abundance issue as above plus more complex unit cell
  • AlN – aluminum nitride – (less strong and less chemically stable than boron nitride but aluminum is boundlessly available)

Related: Diamond like compounds

Best SiO2 polymorphs

Metastable ultrahard and dense SiO2 polymorphs:

Simple titanium gemstones

Titanium combined with all sorts of abundant non-metal elements forms astoundingly many gemstone like compounds with exceptionally good mechanical and thermal properties. (Unlike the extremely abundant element iron that disappointingly underperforms in this regard). Titanium is reasonably abundant in Earths crust. Not as common as iron though. Titanium is especially common on our moon. There is also lack of non-volatile non-metal elements (like carbon and nitrogen) to combine it with though. Well, even for a quite big moonbases the volatiles in polar moon craters will suffice.

Titanium compounds with second row elements

  • TiB2 Titanium diboride - hexagonal 2D layered - 3230°C - 4.52g/ccm - optically metallic - highly refractory compound
  • TiC Titanium carbide - simple cubic - 3160°C (800°C in air) - 4.93g/ccm Mohs 9 to 9.5 - water insoluble (almost)
  • TiN Titanium nitride - simple cubic - 2,947°C - 5.21 g/cm3 - optically metallic (golden) - "barrier metal" - water insoluble (almost)

Titanium oxides:

  • TiO [1] - hongquiite - simple cubic - 1,750C° - 4.95g/ccm - optically metallic (golden)
  • Ti2O3 [2] - tistarite - hexagonal corundum structure (like sapphire) - 2,130°C (decomposes) - 4.49g/ccm - semiconducting to metallic at 200°C
  • TiO2 [3] - rutile, anatase, brookite, and more

Titanium compounds with third row elements:

  • TiSi2 Titanium disilicide - orthorhombic (complex unit cell) - 1,470°C - 4.02g/ccm - water insoluble - optically metallic and electrically conductive - More titanium silicides ...
  • Ti3Si - tetragonal - (isotype to Ti3P - see above and Zr3P)
  • Ti5Si4 - 2120°C - tetragonal (isotype to Zr5Si4)
  • TiSi Titaniummonosilicide - 1760 °C - orthorhombic (isotype to FeB)
  • Ti5Si9 - spacegroup Cmcm (Nr. 63) - 3.9g/ccm
  • Ti5Si3

Given silicon is a semi-metal and titanium is a metal titanium silicides should come with quite metallic properties (optically and electrically).
But mechanically still gemstone like like inter-metallic compounds.

Zirconium Zr compounds (maybe)

  • Zr (fifth row) is the element below Titanium (fourth row)
  • Zr is the most abundant fifth and below row non alkali element (Earth's crust).
  • Zr makes similarly good compounds with various other elements as Ti

Quite simple rutile structure & Hard

And neo-polymorphs with rutile structure. These include:

  • Silicon group: GeO2, SnO2, β-PbO2 – (germanium Ge is rather rare)
  • Other: MnO2, FeSbO4 – (antimony Sb is rather rare)

See: rutile structure. There is also a mention on that on the page about silicon
This could be called the the stishovite continuum or the rutile continuum'.

Corundum structure & hard

The corundum structure has lower symmetry than the rutile structure
which can be but not necessarily is a downside in that the design of crystolecules
based on these materials might be more difficult and or more limited.

  • Eskolatite (Cr2O3) – Mohs 8 – optically metallic – Chromium is less common
  • Hematite (Fe2O3) – Mohs 5.5 to 6.5 – optically metallic – Iron compounds are usually weaker

For more examples including less performant ones see:
Corundum structure – corundum is a term for low grade sapphire (and polymorphs: deltalumite)

Mono metal monoxides (simple cublic NaCl salt structure)

Earth alkali based

  • MgO periclase
  • CaO anhydrous lime - questionable - highly reactive with water - ok if well sealed inside of products

Transition metal based

Some transition metal monoxides (Typical: Max 1300-1900°C - Mohs 5-6)

  • TiO hongquiite
  • MnO manganosite - (Mn is less abundant)
  • FeO wüstite
  • NiO bunsenite - (Ni is not too abundant on earth but very abundant on metallic asteroids)

V vanadium, Cr chromium, Co cobalt do that too but
these elements are more scarce thus
not included as pure high volume base materials here

Other

  • Deltalumite Al2O3 (δ form of corundum, polymorph of sapphire) – tetragonal – Mohs ? – [4]

See: Leukosapphire#Polymorphs

Spinel minerals (they all have nice cubic unit cells)

  • Spinel MgAl2O4 – Mohs 7.5 to 8.0 – cubic
  • Ulvöspinel TiFe2O4 – Mohs 5.5 to 6.0 – optically metallic

Ambient pressure stable high pressure modificaions of olivine:

  • High pressure modification of iron olivine γ-Fe2SiO4: Ahrensite – [5] – (Mohs 6 – 4.26g/ccm)
  • High pressure modification of magnesium olivine Mg2SiO4: Ringwoodite – (Mohs ? – 3.9g/ccm)

Quite good materials with some hampering weakness(es)

Con: low crystal structure symmetry

Con: Rather soft materials

Others

  • garnets - hard and cubic (but big unit cell)
  • brommelite BeO - very hard but beryllium is scarce and poisonous

Related

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