• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.27-34
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• 2013

X-ray powder diffraction is one of the most powerful techniques for qualitative and quantitative analysis of crystalline compounds. Thus, there exist a number of different methods for quantifying mineral mixtures using X-ray diffraction pattern. We present here the use of Rietveld and PONKCS (partial or no known crystal structure) methods for quantification of amorphous and crystallized mineral phases in synthetic mixtures of standard minerals (amorphous silica, quartz, mullite and corundum). Pawley phase model of amorphous silica was successfully built from the pattern of 100 wt% amorphous silica and internal standard-spiked samples by PONKCS approach. The average of absolute bias for quantities of amorphous silica was 1.85 wt%. The larger bias observed for lower quantities of amorphous silica is probably explained by low intensities of diffraction pattern. Averages of absolute bias for minerals were 0.53 wt% for quartz, 0.87 wt% for mullite and 0.57 wt% for corundum, respectively. The PONKCS approach achieved improved quantitative results compared with classical Rietveld method by using an internal standard.