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A Rietveld tutorial—Mullite

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 February 2012

James A. Kaduk
James A. Kaduk*
Affiliation:
Poly Crystallography Inc., 423 East Chicago Avenue, Naperville, Illinois 60540
*
a)Electronic mail: kaduk@polycrystallography.com
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Abstract

The crystal structure of the mullite in a commercial material was refined by the Rietveld method using laboratory X-ray powder diffraction data. In this one refinement, most of the common challenges—including variable stoichiometry (partially occupied sites), multiple impurity phases, amorphous material, constraints, restraints, correlation, anisotropic profiles, microabsorption, and contamination during grinding—are encountered and the thought processes during the refinement are described step-by-step. Interpretation of the refinements includes bulk chemical analysis, chemical composition of the mullite, assessment of the geometry, bond valence sums, the displacement coefficients, crystallite size and microstrain, comparison to similar structures to assess chemical reasonableness, and the nature of the amorphous phase.

Keywords

Rietveldmulliteconstraintsrestraintsmicroabsorptionamorphousquantitative phase analysis
Type
Crystallography Education
Information
Powder Diffraction , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , December 2009 , pp. 351 - 361
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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