Line broadening in the PXRD patterns of layered hydroxides: The relative effects of crystallite size and structural disorder

Layered hydroxides crystallize in a hexagonal structure and incorporate a number of different types of structural disorders as an exigency of anisotropic bonding. Structural disorder contributes to the non-uniform broadening of lines in the powder X-ray diffraction pattern. Common among the disorders are stacking faults, which broaden the h0µ/0kµ reflections. Interstratification selectively broadens the 0µ reflections and turbostratic disorder broadens the 0kµ reflections. The line broadening caused by structural disorder has to be discounted before estimates of particle size are made by applying the Scherrer formula.