Practical mineralogical quantification of bentonites supported for a PXRD calibrated hkl model

Abstract

In the bentonite industry - exploration and beneficiation - ore quality control has been traditionally carried out using the swelling parameter, denominating those that swell as naturally sodium bentonites and those that do not as naturally non-sodium bentonites. However, the properties of the bentonites can vary due to the quantity and cationic type of montmorillonite. The variation in those properties cannot always be predicted, because there is still no consolidated and convenient method for clays mineralogical quantification. A quantification via PXRD using the Rietveld method is only reliable when all the crystalline structures of the mineral phases are known. This is not the case for bentonites, since the montmorillonite shows turbostratic disorder that leads to extremely wide and asymmetric non-basal reflections that are not considered in the available structural models. Thus, in this work, is generate a calibrated hkl model for a Brazilian montmorillonite applying the combined Rietveld-Le Bail-Internal Standard method developed by Paz et al. (2018). The study concluded that the combined method is a good choice for the mineralogical quantification of the bentonites, handling turbostratic disorder of montmorillonite, since the develop hkl phase model showed good results in mixtures with >50% montmorillonite content (greater precision and reproducibility).