Barbieri Thesis - BioMedical Materials program (BMM)

Chapter 7 – Polymer molecular weight and instructive composites
was aged overnight, washed with distilled water to remove ammonia, dehydrated in
acetone (Fluka) and finally dried at 60±1°C. Its chemistry was then investigated with X–
ray diffractometry (XRD, MiniFlex II, Rigaku, Japan) using Cu K radiation (=1.54056 Å)
operating at 30 kV and 15 mA. Spectra were collected at 0.083 deg sec –1 in the
2range 5–90 deg. Unit cell parameters of the powder were determined from XRD
data using the software Jade (v6.5.26, Materials Data Inc., Livermore, CA, USA).
Following background subtraction (cubic spline method) and pattern smoothing
(parabolic Savitzky–Golay filter set at 15 points), individual diffraction peaks were fitted
(R