Determination of chlorite, muscovite, albite and quartz in claystones and clay shales by infrared spectroscopy and partial least-squares regression

Abstract

The objective of this work is the chemometric quantification of minerals in rocks. A chemometric method was developed for the determination of chlorite, muscovite, albite and quartz in claystones and clay shales using infrared spectroscopy. Bromide pellets and diffuse reflectance were used to measure the infrared spectra; principal component analysis and partial leastsquares regression were used as chemometric methods. Spectral regions (4000-3000 cm-1 and 1300-400 cm-1) containing important spectral information were chosen by principal component analysis. The calibration models were created by a partial least-squares regression. The mean relative error and relative standard deviation were calculated for the assessment of accuracy and reproducibility. The value of the mean relative error was about 10 % for most of the calibration models. The value of the relative standard deviation ranged from 1.1 to 3.0 % for most calibration models based on diffuse reflectance spectra and from 4.0 to 9.2 % for most calibration models based on spectra obtained with bromide pellets.