The viability of the direct-space strategy TALP (Vallcorba et al., 2012b) to solve crystal structures of molecular compounds from laboratory powder diffraction data is shown. The procedure exploits the accurate metric refined from a ‘Bragg-Brentano’ powder pattern to extract later the intensity data from a second ‘texture-free’ powder pattern with the DAJUST software (Vallcorba et al., 2012a). The experimental setup for collecting this second pattern consists of a circularly collimated X-ray beam and a 2D detector. The sample is placed between two thin Mylar® foils, which reduces or even eliminates preferred orientation. With the combination of the DAJUST and TALP software a preliminary but rigorous structural study of organic compounds can be carried out at the laboratory level. In addition, the time-consuming filling of capillaries with diameters thinner than 0.3mm is avoided.

Many N-acylhydrazone derivatives synthetized in LASSBio® cannot be prepared as single crystals of sufficient size and/or quality for structure determination to be carried out using single crystal X-ray diffraction techniques. This article highlights the opportunity for determining crystal structures of this class of compounds directly from powder diffraction data. For this task, the crystal structure of LASSBio-294 was re-determined by means of conventional X-ray powder diffraction data and so, compared with the crystal structure already determined for single crystal data. LASSBio-294 is a cardioactive compound of the N-acylhydrazone class, which can become part of the therapeutic interventions designed to decrease exertional fatigue, and, consequently, improve the quality of life of patients suffering from chronic heart failure. Its final crystal structure was refined by means of the Rietveld method (Rietveld, 1967; 1969). This drug crystallizes in a monoclinic (P21/c) space group, with unit cell parameters a = 11.3413(3) Å, b = 12.3573(4) Å, c = 9.0158(3) Å, β = 89.821(2)°, V = 1263.55(7) Å3, Z = 4, Ź = 1 and ρcalc = 1.4419(1) g cm−3. The goodness-of-fit indicator and R-factors were, respectively: χ2 = 1.203, R Bragg  = 0.696%, R wp  = 5.59%, R exp  = 4.65% and R p  = 4.18%. The molecules in LASSBio-294 are H-bonded along the c-axis involving the atoms N(3)–H(8)···O(4).

The crystal structure of a new hafnium oxyhydroxide obtained by an ion-exchange reaction from a Li2HfO3 precursor has been solved by a direct method and refined using Rietveld full profile fitting based on X-ray powder diffraction data. HfO(ОН)2 crystallizes in a P21/c monoclinic unit cell (a = 5.5578(5) Å, b = 9.0701(10) Å, c = 5.7174(5) Å, β = 119.746(5)°); its structure can be described as a framework formed by edge-sharing HfO6 octahedra connected to each other via vertices. In addition, an analysis of the atomic pair distribution function obtained using synchrotron radiation was used to confirm the model and to describe fine-structure features.