Hi friends,
My university recently switched from using the ICDD Powder Diffraction PDF-4+ database for identifying minerals by XRD to a program called Match!3.
For identifying bulk samples, Match!3 seems to work just fine. But I'm also analyzing clay and zeolite mineralogy, and the Match!3 program doesn't seem to know how to identify many of these minerals... I type them into the "search" field and nothing happens.
Also, when I import data, and run the "search-match" option, I get a list of chemical formulae rather than mineral names... when I used to use the ICDD PDF database, I could turn off the "common phase" database and switch on the "mineral name" database. Does anyone know if there is a way to do that in Match!3?
It's incredibly frustrating for my undergraduate students to use Match!3 because they aren't familiar enough with (the highly variable) chemical formulae of zeolites and/or clay minerals to know what minerals the program is identifying when it spits out this list of massive formulae with no mineral name attached. (And sadly, my university has decided to no longer pay for the ICDD PDF access, so I think I might be stuck with using Match!3 for now).
Thanks for your help!
-Cindy
You need to check your reference database first, please take a look on your Match (on the bottom right), there are common reference databases but maybe COD as your default references. As I know there are so many common reference database: ICDD PDF database product, COD, CIF Files (from journals or various sources), your own powder diff. pattern, crystal structure data, or combination of all sources above. The importance is, if you want to use ICDD you have to following instruction from ICDD (install, register, license etc), and finally when you want operates Match, this program will automatically detect and you just follow the next instruction as you want it. Finally, you can check on your bottom right of your Match ICDD as your reference database
I would highly recommend to define your own database and only use these confirmed phases for further interpretation. You can in case of new phases start a new search considering all other databases again. Since you obviously did XRD indexing in the past I would not expect that you are exactly running now into a trap as pointed out by K. M. Towe, however, his recommendation you should always take into account. You can measure perfectly but not exactly that what you want or need to measure.
Another option is to use instead of Match the free software BGMN. If you look into the ranking of the Reynolds cup, BGMN always was very successful for clay minerals. This should ave some reason :-). From my point of view the fundamental parameters approach which does not enable a "meaningful" optimization of the peak widths which is essential in case of numerous overlapping reflections.
BGMN even has a free GUI developed by N. Döbelin:
https://profex.doebelin.org/?page_id=404
I am sure that he would help you during the first steps...
Good luck!
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