INVESTIGATION ON THE MINERALOGICAL PHASE OF ANCIENT BRICK SAMPLES OF KATHMANDU VALLEY (NEPAL) USING XRD AND FTIR ANALYSIS

摘要

The total eight clay brick samples including five archaeologically importance samples from different historical sites and three samples from more than a century old buildings of Kathmandu valley were collected and their mineralogical phases were characterized using X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic methods in this study. Mineralogical phases existed in these archaeological and ancient clay bricks are identified as quartz, feldspars, spinel, muscovite, margarite and hematite in accordance with the powder diffraction standard files. The degree of the disappearance of feldspars phase and appearance of the spinel phase in all the brick samples is found to be different indicating that the firing temperature applied to produce these brick specimens should not be same. The firing temperature applied for the production of the eight clay brick samples should be in the range of 900°-1000° C. Most of the archaeological clay brick samples used in this study should be produced by firing at the high-temperature comparison with those brick samples used in old buildings of Kathmandu valley.