Phase identification, composite

Applications The general applications of XRD comprise routine phase identification, quantitative analysis, compositional studies of crystalline solid compounds, texture and residual stress analysis, high-and low-temperature studies, low-angle analysis, films, etc. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction has been used for detailed structural analysis of many pure polymer additives (antioxidants, flame retardants, plasticisers, fillers, pigments and dyes, etc.) and for conformational analysis. A variety of analytical techniques are used to identify and classify different crystal polymorphs, notably XRD, microscopy, DSC, FTIR and NIRS. A comprehensive review of the analytical techniques employed for the analysis of polymorphs has been compiled [324]. The Rietveld method has been used to model a mineral-filled PPS compound [325]. 

PHASE IDENTIFICATION BY COMBINING LOCAL COMPOSITION FROM EDX WITH INFORMATION FROM DIFFRACTION DATABASE... 

Local composition is very useful supplementary information that can be obtained in many of the transmission electron microscopes (TEM). The two main methods to measure local composition are electron energy loss spectrometry (EELS), which is a topic of a separate paper in this volume (Mayer 2004) and x-ray emission spectrometry, which is named EDS or EDX after the energy dispersive spectrometer, because this type of x-ray detection became ubiquitous in the TEM. Present paper introduces this latter method, which measures the X-rays produced by the fast electrons of the TEM, bombarding the sample, to determine the local composition. As an independent topic, information content and usage of the popular X-ray powder dififaction database is also introduced here. Combination of information from these two sources results in an efficient phase identification. Identification of known phases is contrasted to solving unknown stmctures, the latter being the topic of the largest fiaction of this school. 

Phase identification by combining local composition from EDX... 

The SEM-AIA results contain very detailed information for the composite coal/mineral particles and their component parts (i.e., information on size, phase identification, and associations) which can be presented in a number of ways. Tables can be prepared to show the distribution of the sample as a function of particle size and to show the coal-mineral association in terms of bulk properties or in terms of surface properties. For bulk properties, the distribution of coal and minerals is prepared as a function of the total mineral content of the individual particles which can be related to particle density. For surface properties, coal and mineral data are tabulated as a function of the fraction of particle surface covered by mineral matter which can be used to predict the surface properties of the particles and their behavior during surface-based cleaning. Examples of these distributions are given below. 

Crystallization was followed by analyzing the solid product quantitatively by x-ray powder diffraction. Prepared mixtures of a standard sample of mordenite and the amorphous substrate of mordenite composition were used to establish a calibration curve for the quantity of mordenite based on the summation of x-ray peak intensities. For zeolites A and X, the unreacted aluminosilicate gel was used to prepare mixtures with standard samples of zeolites A and X for quantitative phase identification. 

Main factors which affect a hydrothermal reaction are the initial eomposition, reaction temperature and time. In mild hydrothermal synthesis, reaction temperatures lower than 240 °C are respected for both safety of high pressure in normal autoclaves and protection of softness of Teflon line. In our specific synthesis system, high temperature favorites the reaction and the most important factor was the base concentration in the initial reaction mixtures. The reaction time associated with reaction temperature affected the reaction. Crystallization kinetic experiment for a typical reaction showed that a reaction time more than lOh gave well-crystallized product and the further crystal growth needed additional time. Table 1 lists the starting reaction compositions and phase identification of products obtained at 240 °C for lOh. 

Identification of crystalline substance and crystalline phases in a specimen is achieved by comparing the specimen diffraction spectrum with spectra of known crystalline substances. X-ray diffraction data from a known substance are recorded as a powder diffractionfile (PDF). Most PDFs are obtained with CuKa radiation. Standard diffraction data have been published by the International Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDD), and they are updated and expanded from time to time. For one crystalline substance, there may be more than one file. The most recently updated file is recommended for phase identification. The early PDFs may contain errors in data obtained experimentally. More recently published PDFs are either obtained by more accurate experimental measurements or by theoretical calculation. A specimen to be identified should be in a powder form for most accurate matching. When we need to identify the crystal structure of a specimen that cannot be prepared as powder, matches of peak positions and relative intensities might be less than perfect. In this case, other information about the specimen such as chemical composition should be used to make a judgment. 

Such calculations can be used, not only for verification, but as part of the phase identification process. For example. Figure 11.8 again shows the calculated chemistry (Fe, Ca and O only) from the XRD QPA during the reaetion of the mixture described above. This caleulation was earned out prior to eom-pletion of the analysis of this reaetion and represents a time at whieh phase identification, and thus the Rietveld model, was incomplete. Compared with Figure 11.7, there is a clear discrepancy between the theoretical and calculated amounts of Ca, Fe and O from about 1000 °C. This suggests that a phase of composition Ca Fe O is missing from the analytical method. Inclusion of... 

Wide-angle X-ray scattering techniques can provide direct information on key features such as crystallinity, preferred orientation, phase identification and compositional analysis.. zfs jjoj-g detailed analysis can yield details of local chain conformations and packing arrangements in both crystalline and disordered polymers. ... 

In the preceding chapter it had already been discussed that it is less the synthesis itself which may be the bottleneck in high-throughput zeolite science but rather the analysis of the solids formed in a high-throughput program. There are several standard characterization techniques which are typically employed to characterize zeolitic materials. These include powder XRD for phase identification, X-ray fluorescence analysis (XRF) or atomic absorption spectrometry to analyze elemental composition, sorption analysis to study the pore system, IR-speclroscopy, typically using adsorbed probe molecules to characterize the acid sites, NMR spectroscopy and many others. For some of these techniques parallelized solutions have been developed and described in the literature, other properties are more difficult to assess in a parallelized or even a fast sequential fashion. 

Chemisorption studies with probe molecules could provide valuable information on metal dispersion and metal-promoter interactions and as shown in the present work, cou d help in identification of the cative phase/alloy composition. Both ensemble and ligand effects could simultaneously be operative, as has been demonstrated in Pt-Sn system. While the ensemble effect promotes activity, ligand effect could improve selectivity and stability. The major role of alkali promoters is to control acidity and retard acid catalysed side reactions and thus improve selectivity and stability. 

Every crystalline phase in a sample has a unique powder diffraction pattern determined from the unit cell dimensions and the atomic arrangement within the unit cell. It can be considered a fingerprint of the material. Thus, powder diffraction can be used for phase identification by comparing measured data with diffraction diagrams from known phases. The most efficient computer searchable crystallographic database is the PDF-4 from the International Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDD) [3]. It is used by very efficient computer-based search-processes. In 2007 the PDF-4-i- database contains information about Bragg-positions and X-ray intensities for more than 450000 compounds, out of which there are about 107 500 data sets with atomic coordinates. New entries are added every year. The positions of the peaks in the measured pattern have to be determined. This can be done manually, but effective, fast and reliable automatic peak search methods have been developed. The method can obviously be successful only if the phases in the sample are included in the database. However, the database can also help to determine unknown phases if X-ray data exist for another isostructural compound albeit with a different composition. 

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