A Rapid Method for Determining Compound Composition of Cement Clinker: Application to Closed Loop Kiln Control

A procedure for determination of phase composition of commercial cement clinker using quantitative x-ray powder diffraction analysis is described. An external standard and comparison of peak heights rather than the peak areas are used for rapid analysis. Several standard curves were prepared using diffraction patterns from known mixtures of previously prepared pure components which exist in cement clinker. For purposes of comparison, both the suggested external standard method and the internal standard method which is generally accepted for quantitative X-ray diffraction analysis were used. It was found that the faster external standard method gives analysis of important clinker constituents with accuracy adequate for quality control in a cement plant. With the use of suggested grinding procedure and an automatic sample changer attachment to standard X-ray diffraction equipment, it is possible to obtain an on-line analysis of clinker in one half hour. This analysis can then be deployed in performing closed loop control of a cement kiln with a proposed algorithm.