Silver behenate is a silver salt of the long-chain fatty acid behenic acid. It is a possible low-angle diffraction standard that was characterized using the powder diffraction technique.
With the National Institute of Standards and Technology's standard reference material silicon as an internal standard, the long spacing of silver behenate was accurately determined from the profile-fitted synchrotron diffraction peaks, with d<sub>001</sub> = 58.380 (3) à(5.8380(3) nm). This result was in agreement with that obtained from the CuKñ 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 size along the long-spacing direction of silver behenate was estimated using the Scherrer equation, giving D(avg) = 900 (50) à(85âÂÂ95 nm).
Diffraction patterns obtained with 1.54 àsynchrotron and CuKñ radiation showed thirteen reflections in the 2ø range from 1.5ð to 20.0ð, 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.