X-ray quantitative phase analysis of residues of the reference Portland clinkers

Residues obtained from the chemical treatment of three Reference Portland clinkers (8486, 8487 and 8488) were analyzed by SEM and X-ray Rietveld quantitative phase analysis. It was found that the chemical treatment was not fully selective. Calculated weight fractions were compared to the weight fraction intervals obtained from a previous analysis of complete clinkers. It was found that in general the refinements based on the diffraction patterns of residues performed better than those based on the patterns of complete clinkers, even though the calculated weight fraction ratios lie mostly within the intervals reported previously. The most important conclusion for daily practice is that if one just wishes to achieve more reliable results in X-ray quantitative phase analysis the improvement is not worth the time and work invested into the chemical treatment of the clinkers.