X-ray powder diffraction of mineral pigments and medicines from the 17th century pharmacy (Spezieria) Santa Maria della Scala in Rome, Italy

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 270-278
Author(s):  
Giovanni Cavallo ◽  
Maria Luisa Vázquez de Ágredos Pascual

The pharmacy (spezieria) Santa Maria della Scala was founded in Rome by the Discalced Carmelites Order in the 17th century, and during the 18th and 19th centuries it became the official supplier of medicines for Vatican Popes. The laboratory and the cases of this spezieria still preserve glass jars with organic and inorganic materials, which were presumably used for medicine and artistic material preparation, whose composition is unknown to date. A research project was initiated with the aim to study the stored materials and the role that the pharmacy played in regional, national and international contexts. In this manuscript, the compounds were analysed through X-ray powder diffraction with the scope to derive the quantitative mineralogical composition of the inorganic fraction, their possible use in pharmacopoeias and as mineral pigments. Most of the analysed samples are salts (sulphates, chlorides, carbonates, phosphates, borates, sulphides), sulphates being the predominant class; oxides were also detected.

1993 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 84-88
Author(s):  
Ron Jenkins ◽  
J. A. Nicolosi

The analysis of crystalline organic phases by X-ray powder diffraction presents special problems, beyond those typically associated with inorganic materials. The large unit cells often associated with organic compounds, combined with the low symmetry of the structures, give rather complicated diffraction patterns that contain many low angle lines. The Bragg–Brentano geometric arrangement employed in most commercial diffractometers gives maximum (d-spacing error at low diffraction angles. This geometry, in turn, means that not only can the large (d-spacing data be of poor quality, but also that much of the low angle data required for the indexing of the pattern is subject to large errors.


2006 ◽  
Vol 510-511 ◽  
pp. 622-625
Author(s):  
Woo Teck Kwon ◽  
Young Phil Kim ◽  
Y. Kim ◽  
Soo Ryong Kim ◽  
Seong Youl Bae

This paper investigates the effect of the pair-minerializer (CaSO4,-CaF2) on the reaction of alite, belite and calcium langbeinite formation with different alkali and sulfate contents. A set of clinker samples was prepared by adding laboratory grade reagents of (NH4)2SO4, CaF2 and K2CO3 to the cement raw mixes. The mineralogical composition of clinker was analyzed by X-ray powder diffraction, and the quantity of minerals was evaluated by using TOPAS software. As the experimental results, the total amount of calcium silicate minerals was rapidly increased with the addition of F and SO3 components simultaneously as pair-mineralizer with K2O more than the value which mineralizer was added separately. Also, in the case of adding K2O only to the raw mixes, the amount of alite is decreased after clinkering. However, if alkali (K2O) and pair-minerializer (CaSO4,-CaF2) were added simultaneously, the quantity of alite and calcium langbeinite mineral increased because of the formation of stable clinker minerals by the reaction of alkali (K2O) and sulfate.


Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (20) ◽  
pp. 6196
Author(s):  
Enrico Boccaleri ◽  
Cristina Marzetti ◽  
Giorgio Celoria ◽  
Claudio Cassino ◽  
Geo Paul ◽  
...  

Pharmaceutical active compounds, including hundreds of different substances, are counted among the emerging contaminants in waterbodies, whose presence raises a growing concern for the ecosystem. Drugs are metabolized and excreted mainly through urine as an unchanged active ingredient or in the form of metabolites. These emerging contaminants are not effectively removed with the technologies currently in use, making them a relevant environmental problem. This study proposes the treatment of urine and water at the source that can allow an easier removal of dissolved drugs and metabolites. The treatment of synthetic urine, with dissolved ibuprofen as a model compound, by adsorption, using various classes of inorganic materials, such as clays, hierarchical zeolites and ordered mesoporous silica (MCM-41), is presented. A multi-technique approach involving X-ray powder diffraction, solid-state NMR, UV-Vis and Raman spectroscopies was employed to investigate the adsorption process in inorganic adsorbents. Moreover, the uptake, the ensuing competition, the efficiency and selectivity as well as the packing of the model compound in ordered mesoporous silica during the incipient wetness impregnation process were all thoroughly monitored by a novel approach, involving combined complementary time-resolved in situ 1H and 13C MAS NMR spectroscopy as well as X-ray powder diffraction.


2015 ◽  
Vol 725-726 ◽  
pp. 578-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Ivanova ◽  
Andrey Pustovgar ◽  
Aleksey Eremin ◽  
Aleksey Adamtsevich

The aim of the present research was to determine special features of hydration process of two commercial microfine cements compared to CEM I 42.5N cement with similar mineralogical composition. The influence of cement fineness and composition on the hydration process was investigated by isothermal calorimetry of cement pastes and quantitative X-ray powder diffraction of hydration products at 1, 3, 7, 14 and 28 days.


2020 ◽  
Vol 235 (11) ◽  
pp. 559-568
Author(s):  
Ulrich Bismayer ◽  
Sutham Srilomsak ◽  
Yaowapa Treekamol ◽  
Waraporn Tanthanuch ◽  
Kanokwalee Suriyatham

AbstractBan Chiang () is an extensively studied archeological site in Northeast Thailand, Udon Thani Province, which became a UNESCO world heritage in 1992. Depending on their production period ceramic artefacts show characteristic patterns at the surface which may be interpreted as iconographic motifs for the site. Two ceramic samples, excavated in 2003, from different periods were re-investigated, previously studied by Tanthanuch W., Pattanasiriwisawa W., Somphon W., Srilomsak S. Synchrotron studies of Ban Chiang ancient pottery. Suranaree J. Sci Technol. 2011, 18, 15–28 who focussed on thermal firing and redox-conditions. Shards selected for this study were sample 5412-S6E15 dated from Bronze Age (ca. 1000–300 BC) with yellow-brown, paint-free surface and a younger sample 8027 from Iron Age (ca. 300 BC–200 AD) with red painted design carrying pictorial patterns typical for the Ban Chiang ceramics. The surface material and colour of both shards was studied in detail using optical reflectance, FTIR spectroscopy and X-ray powder diffraction. Thin sections were used to determine the thickness of the red paint and the elemental composition of the surface using an electron microprobe. Chemical composition of sample 5412-S6E15 consists as oxides of elements mainly of SiO2 and Al2O3 (representing ca. 59 and 20 wt. %) and that of the red colour of the youngest sample 8027 consists mainly of SiO2, Al2O3 and Fe2O3 (representing ca. 52, 13 and 13 wt. %), the average composition adjacent to the red painted area has ca. 72 wt. % SiO2, ca. 10 wt. % Al2O3 and only 2 wt. % Fe2O3. X-ray powder diffraction, FTIR spectroscopy and optical reflectance measurements confirm hematite in the mineralogical composition of the red pigment of shard 8027.


2002 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. F. Schofield ◽  
K. S. Knight ◽  
S. J. Covey-Crump ◽  
G. Cressey ◽  
I. C. Stretton

AbstractThe volume proportions of the mineral phases in two strongly deformed olivine-orthopyroxene rocks have been quantified by whole-pattern stripping of fixed geometry X-ray powder diffraction data. The results were compared with the phase proportions as determined by Rietveld refinement of time-of-flight neutron powder diffraction data, and were shown to be in excellent agreement. The X-ray technique not only provides a very rapid and cost-effective method of determining phase proportions, but it also circumvents several of the problems associated with obtaining this information by image analysis. Moreover, the technique is particularly advantageous in strongly textured rocks or in rocks that contain significant residual strains. As such it offers a powerful technique for analysing the mineralogical composition of fine-grained and/or deformed experimental run products, which makes it of considerable potential for monitoringin situthe progress of mineral reactions during laboratory experiments.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Simoen ◽  
Steven De Meyer ◽  
Frederik Vanmeert ◽  
Nouchka de Keyser ◽  
Ermanno Avranovich ◽  
...  

Abstract The spontaneous chemical alteration of artists’ pigment materials may be caused by several degradation processes. Some of these are well known while others are still in need of more detailed investigation and documentation. These changes often become apparent as color modifications, either caused by a change in the oxidation state in the original material or the formation of degradation products or salts, via simple or more complex, multistep reactions. Arsenic-based pigments such as orpiment (As2S3) or realgar (α-As4S4) are prone to such alterations and are often described as easily oxidizing upon exposure to light. Macroscopic X-ray powder diffraction (MA-XRPD) imaging on a sub area of a still life painting by the 17th century Dutch painter Martinus Nellius was employed in combination with microscopic (μ-) XRPD imaging of a paint cross section taken in the area imaged by MA-XRPD. In this way, the in situ formation of secondary metal arsenate and sulfate species and their migration through the paint layer stack they originate from could be visualized. In the areas originally painted with orpiment, it could be shown that several secondary minerals such as schultenite (PbHAsO4), mimetite (Pb5(AsO4)3Cl), palmierite (K2Pb(SO4)2) and syngenite (K2Ca(SO4)2∙H2O) have formed. Closer inspection of the cross-sectioned paint layer stack with μ-XRPD illustrates that the arsenate minerals schultenite and mimetite have precipitated at the interface between the orpiment layer and the layer below that is rich in lead white, i.e. close to the depth of formation of the arsenate ions. The sulfate palmierite has mostly precipitated at the surface and upper layers of the painting.


2007 ◽  
Vol 2007 (suppl_26) ◽  
pp. 61-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Peplinski ◽  
B. Adamczyk ◽  
G. Kley ◽  
K. Adam ◽  
F. Emmerling ◽  
...  

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