Introduction to quantification of crystal phases: A practical and illustrative example of the fundamentals

Abstract

X-ray powder diffraction is a powerful technique used in the characterization of materials, since it has the ability to undoubtedly differentiate several crystalline phases, even if they have the same composition. In addition to identification, a quantification of the phases present in a sample provided is also possible. Normally the phase quantification is done using computer programs that, increasingly, have a friendly graphical interface and an easy access refinement routine, where the user does not need to have much understanding of the concepts physics and mathematics of the technique to reach a result reasonable. In this context, it is proposed in this work to discuss some basic concepts of phase quantification, exposing a practical example for determining the mass percentage of using a standard mixture model of 75% Magnetite and 25% Hematite.