The bones are also being analysed by other methods which I have a good grasp of, but would be keen to better understand what the implications of the results are so that I can understand how the XRD data combines with my other sources to explain what is happening in my samples.
There is a notable shift in one peak position (in 2o theta units I'm told) from 33 to 32 under some conditions and also around 26/27. There are also changes in peak width.
Is there a good reference source available to get a good understanding of XRD of bone?
Dear James,
I think you should go deeper into XRD in order to understand what is going on when XRD peaks shift or when peaks widths change e.g. when stress is present or crystallite sizes varies.
I must admit that the XRD pattern of bone mineral is a very eciting one due to the presence of a lot of peaks and therefore might look 'promising'. But is not easy to figure out what is going on there when changes pop up.
You may share what you want to analyze with respect to bone?
In what respect your XRD pattern of bone powder 'look promising'?
Final remark: although I have dealt with bone mineral dectection via energy dispersive XRD some years ago, at a first glance I havn't found a review on bone XRD which could help you quickly.
The link may help to under stand how XRD could help to have access to the properties of bone. But it is clear to me that your peak issues mentioned above are not discussed.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5090673/
Dear James,
I propose using X'Pert highscore software that is dedicated to interpretation of XRD patterns. The software contains useful help along with plenty of guides available on the web. This is the first step to find the origin of peaks in your pattern. Most of the peaks in XRD of bone samples can be attributed to hydrous calcium phosphates or apatites. In the next step, after attributing the peaks to corresponding materials in bone matrix, you can study the minor changes in the position of the peaks by Rietveld analysis. It could help you find the change in lattice parameters of the materials that causes shifting of the peaks. Rietveld analysis can be performed by Material Analysis Using Diffraction (MAUD) which is freely available.
Regards
Dear Gerhard and Hamid,
Thanks for the feedback, I'll explore the suggestions further. By promising, I mean that the trends I'm seeing show the same groupings between samples as other techniques so it looks like something interesting can be learned from the data. One other method is Raman and it seems to suggest that some treatment groups are having very similar effects on the bone mineral and we hope to use XRD to investigate this further.
I've not done crystallography since my days as a postdoc so am very out of touch now, so thanks for the guidance.
- Badges
- Science method
- Similar topics
- Methodology
- Crystallography
- X-ray Diffraction