Quantitative estimation of mordenite and clinoptilolite in sedimentary rocks. II.

Data regarding amounts of gas adsorbed, cation exchange capacity values and X-ray reflection peak intensities of mordenite and clinoptilolite from sedimentary zeolite rocks were compared with those of zeolite-content by the X-ray diffraction division method in order to simply know the zeolite-content. Amounts of nitrogen and carbon dioxide adsorbed on mordenite-tuffs are fairly directly proportional to mordenite-content values as are those of carbon dioxide on clinoptilolite-tuffs to clinoptilolite-content values. The content values of mordenite and clinoptilolite in the specimens which contain both the above zeolite minerals, were successfully obtained at a time by a combination method of carbon dioxide adsorption and X-ray diffraction. Cation exchange capacity values of mordenite-tuffs appears to be directly proportional to mordenite-content values. However those of clinoptilolite-tuffs are inadequate to estimate clinoptilolite-content values. The relationships between X-ray reflection peak intensities of zeolite minerals and zeolite-content values can be expressed with a quadratic equation (1). I=a•x2+b•x (1) where I is the X-ray reflection peak intensity, x is the zeolite-content value and, a and b are constants. The content values of mordenite and clinoptilolite in the specimens which contain both the above zeolite minerals, were easily calculated by the equation (1) using (202) plane for mordenite and (035) plane for clinoptilolite.