The fluorescent X-ray analysis was successfully applied to determine the six major components in portland cement.
The measurements were carried on to determine the contents of Fe
2O
3, CaO, SO
3, SiO
2, Al
2O
3 and MgO, by a X-ray spectrograph with specially designed sample chamber, using ammonium dihydrogen phosphate (
d=5.324 a. u.) as an analysing crystal, and in an atomosphere of hydrogen by means of gas-flow proportional counter and pulse height analyser.
Calibration curves were prepared from the commercial cements containing various amounts of above oxides.
In order to avoid the error caused by un uniformity of packing powder samples were pressed to the plates of the size 2cm×3cm under the pressure of 300kg/cm
2.
The determination of the components were made by comparing the intensities of FeK
αI, CaK
αII, SK
αI, SiK
αI AlK
αI, and MgK
α I of unknown to those of standard samples which were polished piece of Basalt, Calcite, Sulpher, and the plate of metallic magnesium.
The correction of the absorption effect of incident fluorescent X-ray was made taking into account of the mass absorption coefficient as well ss the geometrical characteristics of the apparatus.
Standard deviation of the analytical values obtained by the method given above with the calibration curves were 0.06% for Fe
2O
3, 0.14% for CaO, 0.11% for SO
3, 0.27% for SiO
2, 0.27% for Al
2O
3, and 0.16% for MgO.
Differences of the moduli obtained by fluorescent X-ray and chemical analysis were 0.03, 0.10, 0.08, 0.03 in silica modulus (
SM), activity index (
Al), iron modulus (
IM), and hydraulic modulus (
HM), respectively.
It has been proved that the complete determination of six major components given above can be carried out within about an hour, and that the proposed method may be applied as a rapid analysis for the quality control in the portland cement industry.
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