Elaborating and applying a new method of Gibbs energy determination for multicomponent alkali-metal coolants
Abstract
A new variant of the effusion method for measuring the thermodynamic activity (Gibbs energy) in the liquid alkali-metal binary and ternary systems (Cs-Na, K-Na, Cs-K, Cs-K-Na) is proposed. The activity is determined using the components partial pressures by the effusion method with measurement of atomic beam intensity. As oxygen inevitably reacts with a molten alkali metal, the effusion hole cannot be made in advance. Therefore, the effusive hole was machined directly in the vacuum chamber by the electron-ray pulse (the electron linear accelerator was located inside the chamber) after the cell acquired the working temperature. The pressure range was intermediate between Knudsen's mode and hydrodynamic one. A detailed analysis shows that it is possible to operate outside the range where the Hertz-Knudsen equation applies. Applying this method allowed to supply with the boundary conditions the differential equation of chemical thermodynamics, the solution of which enables one to construct Gibbs energy of above alloys in the range of temperatures 400<=T<=1200K and concentrations 0<=xi<=1.
- Publication:
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Journal of Physics Conference Series
- Pub Date:
- February 2008
- DOI:
- 10.1088/1742-6596/98/3/032007
- Bibcode:
- 2008JPhCS..98c2007K