Abstract
Calcium carbonate has high reflectivity and radiation resistance and is of great interest as a pigment filler for thermal control coatings of spacecraft. This work presents a comparative analysis of two different modifications of CaCO3: synthetic calcite and natural aragonite. The phase, elemental, and granulometric composition of the initial powders were investigated; diffuse reflectance spectra, as well as difference spectra, were obtained before and after irradiation of CaCO3 samples with accelerated electrons at an energy of 30 keV and a fluence of 1·1016, 2·1016, and 3·1016 cm−2. The values of the integral absorption coefficient of solar radiation аs and its change Δаs, of calcite and aragonite powders after irradiation were determined. The structure of the CaCO3 samples before and after irradiation was studied using infrared spectroscopy.