Quantitative Rietveld analysis of CAC clinker phases using synchrotron radiation

The quantitative Rietveld analyses of twenty samples of CAC from four different manufacturers over the world, one synthetic mixture and a NIST standard were performed using synchrotron radiation. As compared with conventional XRD, synchrotron powder diffraction permitted to find new minor phases, improve the characterization of solid solutions of iron rich CAC phases and reduce preferential orientation and microabsorption effects. Diffraction data were complemented with XRF and TG/DT analyses. Synchrotron results were used as a reference test to improve the performance of conventional powder diffraction, by an accurate selection of refinable profile and structural parameters, and permitted to extract several recommendations for conventional quantitative Rietveld procedures. It is shown that with these recommendations in mind, conventional XRD based Rietveld analyses are comparable to those obtained from synchrotron data. In summary, quantitative XRD Rietveld analysis is confirmed as an excellent tool for the CAC cement industry.