From the x-ray diffraction theory, we know that the broadening of the reflection lines obtained from a powder sample may be related to some imperfection of the crystallite. Such broadening effect may also be caused by instrumental failures and dispersion of the length of the radiation. In this study, the micro structural parameters of two improved samples of kaolinites were obtained through the method of fitting profiles. This method is also known as Le Bail fitting method and was embodied in the version of FullProf, a program of Rietveld analysis. The Rietveld refinement was performed with the data obtained from the standard reference material LaB6. This refinement led to a set of instrumental function parameters and the validation method of the results obtained by the profile matching method. A modified pseudo-Voigt function (TCHZ) was used to fit the profiles. The integral broadening and the parameters, bh and hh, respectively, were calculated from the program and used as data base for the TCHZpV "model". The results of the microstructural parameters computed by both methods match well, suggesting that the size of the crystallites is the major cause of the kaolinite crystalline imperfections.
Kaolinite; diffraction; X-ray; Rietveld
