I am studying clays diffraction (air dried, treatment with etilenglycol and heat treatments).
Maybe other mineral association could help? Presence of other minerals (i. e. alunite)? I don´t need to be 100% sure but I would like to know how to predict the predominance of one of them.
Thank you very much
It can be difficult, but if you can supplement your XRD work with some SEM kaolinite and dickite can be distinguished relatively easily. Kaolinite has a characteristic 'booklet' appearance of stacked hexagonal plates that look like the pages of a book. Whereas dickite has a more vermicular or 'worm-like' appearance.
Hello,
Distinguishing kaolinite and dickite by XRD is not that complicated. It is necessary to prepare the least structured preparation as possible (cuvette filled from above or behind, dusted preparation, mixing sample with plastic binder etc.) and possibly use the Rietveld method with the insertion of models of both minerals. The positions of relatively weak non-basal lines are decisive. At least 1 g of sample is required and the kaolinitic mineral is a strongly predominant component of the sample.
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