X-ray diffraction study of chalcopyrite CuFeS2, pentlandite (Fe,Ni)9S8 and Pyrrhotite Fe1-xS obtained from Cu-Ni orebodies

The X-ray Diffraction (XRD) technique is applied to study five samples of Cu-Ni orebodies, and it is shown that they contain chalcopyrite CuFeS2 as the source of Cu, pentlandite (Fe,Ni)9S8 as the source of Ni and pyrrhotite Fe1-xS as a dominant compound. There are also other less dominant compounds such as bunsenite NiO, chalcocite Cu2S, penrosite (Ni, Cu)Se2 and magnetite Fe3O4. Using the obtained XRD data, we obtain the lattice parameters for tetragonal chalcopyrite as a=b=5.3069A and c=10.3836A, cubic pentlandite as a=b=c=10.0487A, and hexagonal pyrrhotite as a=b=6.8820A and c=22.8037A. (author)