Rietveld analysis, powder diffraction and cement

Full text: Phase quantification of cement is essential in its industrial use, however many methods are inaccurate and/or time consuming. Powder diffraction is one of the more accurate techniques used for quantitative phase analysis of cement. There has been an increase in the use of Rietveld refinement and powder diffraction for the analysis and phase quantification of cement and its components in recent years. The complex nature of cement components, existence of solid solutions, polymorphic variation of phases and overlapping phase peaks in diffraction patterns makes phase quantification of cements by powder diffraction difficult. The main phase in cement is alite, a solid solution of tricalcium silicate. Tricalcium silicate has been found to exist in seven modifications in three crystal systems, including triclinic, monoclinic, and rhombohedral structures. Hence, phase quantification of cements using Rietveld methods usually involves the simultaneous modelling of several tricalcium silicate structures to fit the complex alite phase. An industry ordinary Portland cement, industry and standard clinker, and a synthetic tricalcium silicate were characterised using neutron, laboratory x-ray and synchrotron powder diffraction. Diffraction patterns were analysed using full-profile Rietveld refinement. This enabled comparison of x-ray, neutron and synchrotron data for phase quantification of the cement and examination of the tricalcium silicate. Excellent Rietveld fits were achieved, however the results showed that the quantitative phase analysis results differed for some phases in the same clinker sample between various data sources. This presentation will give a short introduction about cement components including polymorphism, followed by the presentation of some problems in phase quantification of cements and the role of Rietveld refinement in solving these problems. Copyright (2002) Australian X-ray Analytical Association Inc