When we think of solids, we imagine rocks and minerals. However, we also use solids in households. Cleaning supplies are usually liquids, but dishwashing tablets are solids. Therefor they are even more interesting. What is their composition, how they work and how can we analyse the composition of this solids?
Crystalline solids have a long-range order. Atoms or molecules form unit cell with different symmetry elements. When X-Rays collides with crystal they will diffract; when Bragg’s law is fulfilled diffraction maximum will occur. We use this crystal feature in X-ray powder diffraction, because diffraction pattern that occurs when x-ray collides with specific substance is specific to this substance, which allows us to identify specific substances according to their diffraction patterns. Diffractogram is diagram showing how the intensity of diffracted radiation varies with the angle of diffraction.
I used different programs to analyse diffractograms. I used Expert High-Score to compere diffractograms, Crystallographica Search-Match to identify substances in tablets and Mercury to draw specific structure and calculate its diffractogram.
I tried to identify components of the dishwashing tablets, but I only managed to identify main components. I compared identified components with declaration and found out that I could not identify components that tablet contained less of.
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