Can anybody explain the XRD of Activated carbon?
Usually, one peak is found about 24 degree but in my case, there is another peak at about 26 degree. I want to know about peal 2 as in figure?
Dear Yogesh Kumar ,
there are two typs of peaks; two broad peaks and some tiny quite narrow peaks.
The broad peak arise from amorphous material, such as your carbon.
The tiny narrow peaks arise from crystalline material. The amount of these crystalline phases is very low.
Their peaks will arise either from your substrate/sample support or from impurities caused by the processing steps of your sample or from impurities in your base material.
You may share some insight in the sample preparation and your base material.
For example other people use boric acid (H3BO3) in intermediate steps; for example:
Article Refuse Derived Energy - Tea Derived Boric Acid Activated Car...
XRD pattern of H3BO3 are easily found by googling...
For example fig. 4 of:
Article Determination of the Optimum Conditions for Boric Acid Extra...
Its main peak is close to the position of your 'peak 2'.
There is another interesting XRD pattern; fig. 1 of:
Article Mass transfer modelling in clay-based material: Estimation o...
They state at the beginning of section 3.1 ( page 5) : 'Fig. 1 displays the XRD pattern of the sample. Two broad bands and narrow reflections are present. The two broad bands are attributed to a partial organization of the carbon after its pyrolysis, this latter is inducing the formation of a graphitic phase. The narrow reflections are related to the presence of quartz as impurity.'
So the questions is now: which impurity is present in your sample?
Dear Yogesh Kumar
In addition to comments by Gerhard Martens Sir, I would like to add a reference which has reported a shoulder crystalline peak similar to yours:
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Synthesis-and-characterization-of-activated-carbon-Ramesh-Rajalakshmi/d16c291c72d88208f6584c7995ab3a2377d976e8
Dear Anupam Chowdhury ,
did they say which impurity is assigned to these crystalline peaks*). I could not figure it out from the text. I may have overlooked the hint...
*) there are some more as in the case Dr-Yogesh Kumar above
The identification of the broad peak, indicated by 1 in the figure, is clear. It is a disordered carbonaceous material, as G. Martens states. There is at least one or two other broad peak in the patern, corresponding to this carbonaceous material. To identify peak 2 and others, it would be necessary to know their interlayer distances or attach a raw measurement file. Untreated pyrolysis residues from organic material, sometimes used as activated carbon, commonly contain calcite, quartz, sylvite, halite, etc., after activation the chloride contents decrease. Quartz has the most intense peak at 26.5o 2 theta CuKa. Calcite and sylvite may be included too.
Hello, there is also the hum peak at 2theta =42° with low intensity which show that graphitics and disordered graphitics are dominant features
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