TM06 Loss on Ignition

 Ignition loss is useful to monitor consistency of clay materials from day to day (sample to sample), if a carbon / sulphur analyser is unavailable it can give an indication of the volatile content (carbon, sulphur, combined water).

When used in conjunction with moisture adsorption techniques it can give an indication of the clay mineralogy, to do this two or more ignition losses are required. Usually dried at 110^oC, first loss at 375^oC and another loss at 1000^oC

The first loss gives an indication of the bulk of carbonaceous material and other minerals such as siderite and hydrated iron oxide.

These days with the use of XRF techniques the loss is normally used to assess the amount of material which in not analysed. Most of which is water, carbon and sulphur. A carbon / sulphur analyser can be used to determine the amount of carbon and sulphur.