CRYSTALLITE MORPHOLOGY IN GOLD CATALYSTS OBTAINED BY RIETVELD REFINEMENT

The microstructure of gold catalysts supported on rutile was obtained by Rietveld refinement. Three-dimensional images of the crystallites were generated in real space, as well as 3-D images of the microstrain distribution in reciprocal space. These images were used to analyze the effect of the different parameters of the refinement models on the interpretation of the microstructure of the samples. The 3-D representations can be used to obtain the crystallite volume, mass, number of atoms, and specific area of the crystallites, which can be compared with the BET specific surface area of the sample measured experimentally.