Quantificação mineral das fases cristalinas de um Argissolo Amarelo pelo Método de Rietveld

Abstract

The Rietveld Method has been used in soil studies, however, there are some disputes about the reliability of results in soils through mineralogical quantification using X-ray diffraction in general. Regarding the refinement of crystalline structures and mineral quantification through the Rietveld Method, it is of great importance that the initial structure used is close to that under study. Studies carried out in hardsetting horizon soils revealed that they present few crystalline phases and, as they are not so complex in terms of mineralogy, it was hypothesized that other hardsetting horizon soils presented few phases. Thus, some samples coming from the hardsetting of a Hapludalf soil formed from non-consolidated sediments of sand and sand-clay nature from the Barreiras formation, with an Ami climate according to the Köppen classification were analyzed. The region where the soil was collected is located on the Farm Citropar II (average coordinates: 01° 48’ 38” South, 47° 11’ 38” West) in the city of Capitão Poço, State of Pará, which is a very important region for the citrus production. This study was carried out aiming to obtain the previously refined structures of the minerals Kaolinite, Quartz and Goethite for mineral quantification of the granulometric fractions and the air dried fine earth and also to corroborate with studies on the mineralogy of Brazilian soils using X-ray fluorescence and the Rietveld Method associated to the X-ray diffraction. In order to develop the study, chemical treatments were carried out to obtain fractions with higher concentrations of the minerals Kaolinite, Quartz and Goethite, semi- quantitative and quantitative X-ray fluorescence elemental analysis, X-ray diffraction with Cu Kα radiation in the step by step scanning mode data collection, with 0,02 º step and 10 s sampling time, in the extension 2θi = 5,00° to 2θf=80° and the Rietveld Method. From the previously refined mineral structures in chemically treated samples, it was possible to verify that the Rietveld Method refinement with X-ray diffraction data was more efficient, for the soil under study, when compared to the refinement that directly employs the structures presented in the literature.