Silver behenate is a

silver Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...

salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...

of the long-chain

fatty acid In chemistry, in particular in biochemistry, a fatty acid is a carboxylic acid with an aliphatic chain, which is either saturated and unsaturated compounds#Organic chemistry, saturated or unsaturated. Most naturally occurring fatty acids have an ...

behenic acid. It is a possible low-angle diffraction standard that was characterized using the

powder diffraction Powder diffraction is a scientific technique using X-ray, neutron, or electron diffraction on powder or microcrystalline samples for structural characterization of materials. An instrument dedicated to performing such powder measurements is ca ...

technique.

Description

With the

National Institute of Standards and Technology The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into Outline of p ...

's standard reference material

silicon Silicon is a chemical element; it has symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic lustre, and is a tetravalent metalloid (sometimes considered a non-metal) and semiconductor. It is a membe ...

as an internal standard, the long spacing of silver behenate was accurately determined from the profile-fitted synchrotron diffraction peaks, with d₀₀₁ = 58.380 (3) Å (5.8380(3) nm). This result was in agreement with that obtained from the CuKα pattern. The profile widths of the silver behenate peaks were found to be consistently larger than those of the silicon peaks, indicating significant line broadening for silver behenate. The average

crystallite A crystallite is a small or even microscopic crystal which forms, for example, during the cooling of many materials. Crystallites are also referred to as grains. Bacillite is a type of crystallite. It is rodlike with parallel Wikt:longulite ...

size along the long-spacing direction of silver behenate was estimated using the Scherrer equation, giving ''D''(avg) = 900 (50) Å (85–95 nm). Diffraction patterns obtained with 1.54 Å synchrotron and CuKα radiation showed thirteen reflections in the 2''θ'' range from 1.5° to 20.0°, which suggests that the compound is suitable for use as an angle-calibration standard for low-angle diffraction. However, care must be taken if silver behenate is to be used as a peak-profile calibration standard because of line broadening.

References

* {{silver compounds Silver compounds Salts of carboxylic acids