Characterization of wax as a potential diffraction intensity standard for macromolecular crystallography beamlines

A number of commercially available waxes in the form of thin disc samples have been investigated as possible diffraction intensity standards for macromolecular crystallography synchrotron beamlines. Synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction measurements show that beeswax offers the best performance of these waxes owing to its polycrystallinity. Crystallographic lattice parameters and diffraction intensities were examined between 281 and 309 K, and show stable and predictable thermal behaviour. Using an X-ray beam of known incident flux at λ = 1 Å, the diffraction power of two strong Bragg reflections for beeswax were quantified as a function of sample thickness and normalized to 10¹⁰ photons s⁻¹. To demonstrate its feasibility as a diffraction intensity standard, test measurements were then performed on a new third-generation macromolecular crystallography synchrotron beamline.