Analysis of polydisperse ball-milled fluorite powders using a full pattern technique
M. Leoni1,
G. De Giudici2, R. Biddau2, P. Scardi1
1 University of Trento, Department of Materials
Engineering and Industrial Technologies, 38050 via Mesiano 77, Trento, Italy
2 Univerity of Cagliari, Department
of Earth Sciences, 09100 via Trentino 51, Cagliari, Italy.
X-ray powder
diffraction is particularly suited to the analysis of nanocrystalline
materials. Both structural and microstructural information can nowadays be
obtained simultaneously by full pattern processing techniques.
Among those,
Whole Powder Pattern Modelling (WPPM) outperform most traditional Line Profile
Analysis (LPA) techniques by giving a direct interpretation of the diffraction
pattern in terms of physical microstructural models. In the present work we
illustrate a recent evolution of the WPPM approach, allowing the refinement of
a general domain-size distribution, not related to any a priori fixed
analytical profile or size distribution shape. Besides the description of the
new algorithm we show the results of the analysis of ball milled synthetic
fluorite powders. The new WPPM procedure provides a detailed information on the
evolution of the grinding process with time: the decrease and change of shape
of the grain size distribution with the milling time is accompanied by a steady
increase in defect content. The increased defectivity is shown to be a main
responsible for the higher reactivity and therefore for the high dissolution
rates shown by ball-milled fluorite powders.
Acknowledgement
This work
was supported by the basic research funds of the Italian Ministry of University
and Research, PRIN 2003-2004 project "Mechanisms of surface interactions
in mineral phases: kinetics of dissolution, of crystal growth and their
modeling"