What is the best crystalline material that can be used for the XRD quantitative analysis for cementitious materials, with the instrument having Cu Anode.
Also, does the particle size have to be of approximately the same size as that of the material being analysed?
Thanks Stuart, just wondering if you know whether the particle size of standard has any effect. My main experimental powder samples were seived through 45 micron sieve. If i don't get the similar particle size of the standard will it have any impact in the results?
yes it will have an effect as it will relate to peak position and broadening effects.
I would to keep particle sizing to be similar if you can.
I tried it running know compositions of standards to samples and got good results
Yes it will have an effect, but I have to disagree with Stuart that it will not affect peak positions or broadening. Peak positions can only be affected by changes in the cell parameters, or zero error/sample height error, it will not matter what the particle size is. Particle size, at this scale, will not affect peak broadening. Only if you continued milling the material to induce structural disorder would peak breadth be affected.
The important point here is that in order to do quantitative Rietveld refinement you need much finer material than 45um. Please have a look at the Bruker slide that discusses the effect of size on the statistics.
Another point to consider is micro-absorption will vary if the particle sizes are different.
The recommendation is to mill samples down to
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