Dry your sample first and choose a proper dice to make the pellet.

Use low pressure ( 5 tonnes or less) and higher time ( 10 min).

Hi Joyashish,

At one time I ran into a similar problem. Either the pellet density would be very low or it would stick to the die and ram and simply peel and break. In my case a careful visual inspection of the die revealed mechanical damage, which was causing uneven pressure to be applied to the pellet causing it to break. We replaced the assembly and the problem was mostly fixed.

Alternately, as mentioned by Shubham pressure does indeed play a role. There are two ways to solve this problem. Either you can start with a low pressure and slowly increase it to see which works best. Or as in my case, use a low pressure that does indeed work and supplement it with a secondary technique such as a hydrostatic press. This seemed to work with pellets without binders.

However, when all else failed we did indeed proceed to calcine the 'broken' pellets anyways and ground them afterwards to achieve smaller but perfect pellets. This was done when time was of essence and all else failed.

I hope this helps.

Thanks a lot Shubham Roy and Aditya Chauhan for your valuable suggestions.

Hi Aditya,

I wonder if you use any other type of die than that used normally for KBr pellet preparation? I am using the standard 13 mm die assembly (https://www.specac.com/en/products/sample-preparation/pellet-dies/evacuable/pellet-press-dies-ftir-xrf-dies).

Many thanks.