I need to know how can we use XRD analysis to identify and quantitatively determine the content of free quartz in silicon dioxide sample if it contain an amorphous structure beside the crystalline. Is there a standard method for a single phase quantification rather than the chemical method?
Please share with me the papers you know.
Thanks
If the amorphous content is high then you can do a simple measurement of areas under the curve of the XRD pattern for total and for crystalline only, then ratio to get the % crystalline. If the data are good enough and the amorphous is high then this is a good method. If the amorphous content is low, that method will fail, due the difficulty of finding the correct background and you will need to use refinement software with the addition of a measured standard such as zincite. Refinement software can also work without standard addition by modelling the amorphous curve.
The ICDD link is concerned with amorphous determination, but if your balance is quartz then this can be calculated.
http://www.icdd.com/ppxrd/12/presentations/P30-Arnt-Kern-ppxrd-12.pdf
Thank you Dr.Slipper,
Can you advise me on useful materials about modelling the amorphous curve.
Any background fitting software should be able to do this. However, my experience is with Bruker XRD software, so I use EVA to do background fitting, or there are more sophisticated peak fitting routines in TOPAS. These are both commercial. I have added a Bruker presentation on how it done using these programs. You may find similar routines with other available programs.
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