Tunisian Powder Diffraction School 2022

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The Tunisian Powder Diffraction School 2022 (TPDS 2022) was held at the Palais des Sciences, Monastir, Tunisia, from 27 to 30 March 2022, and organised by Drs Marwène Oumezzine and Hassen Agougui (both at Laboratoire de Physico-chimie des Matériaux, Faculté des Sciences de Monastir, Tunisia).

Powder diffraction methods have demonstrated an ever-increasing range of applications in materials science, chemistry, physics, life sciences and engineering. The purpose of the TPDS 2022 was to explore during three days the basic theory behind powder diffraction with the help and guidance of recognised experts in the field. The participants were already familiar with both the fundamentals of crystallography and X-ray powder diffraction.

This School aimed to cover all stages of sample analysis, beginning at sample preparation, experimental setup through to wavelength refinement and qualitative and quantitative analysis. In support of this, the topics covered included the following: 

  • Basic principles of crystallography
  • Powder diffraction instrumentation
  • Physics of diffraction and crystallography in reciprocal space
  • Introduction to powder diffraction theory and interpretation of XRPD patterns
  • Powder diffraction and practical applications

and the speakers were as follows:

  • Professor Mohamed Oumezzine (Tunisia)
  • Professor Sadok Zemni (Tunisia)
  • Dr Rim Benali-Cherif (Algeria)
  • Professor Aurelian Catalin Galca (Romania)
  • Professor El-Eulmi Bendeif (France)
  • Dr Nejeb Ihzaz (Tunisia)
  • Dr Marwène Oumezzine (Tunisia)
  • Dr Ilaria Gimondi and Suzanna Ward (CCDC)
  • Martin Fark and Dr Tom Faske (STOE) 
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An Introduction to Crystallography on the first day was followed by a group discussion between the tutors and students and an oral session. The programme on the following days included practical work, lectures, further oral sessions, a poster session, a workshop on depositing and exploring data in the Cambridge Structural Database, and a presentation about STOE's powder and single-crystal XRD product range and recent installations.

[Oral presentations]
Oral presentations from attendees. Left to right: Yosra Zidi (Gafsa), Chadha Mejri (Bizerte), Wael Albouchi (Bizerte) and Manel Ben Salah (Tunis).

A total of 19 young scientists (13 female, 6 male) from Morocco and Tunisia were awarded IUCr bursaries to help with travel and subsistence costs.

2 September 2022

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