Electrical conductivity of melts containing rare-earth halides. II. MCl-PrCl3 (M = Li, Rb, Cs)

Abstract

The specific conductivity of molten LiCl-PrCl3, RbCl-PrCl3, and CsCl-PrCl3 was measured from the liquidus temperature up to ~1180 K by a conventional ac technique. The molar conductivity ∧ was calculated by using literature data on the densities of the binary systems. In all cases, it was found that the plot ln ∧ vs. 1/T is not a straight line. Thereby the activation energy of the conductivity does not remain constant but reduces with increasing temperature. In the specific and molar conductivity isotherms, strong deviations from additivity are observed with maxima in a range 35-45 mol. % PrCl3. The results conform to the idea of dominating octahedral local coordination of Pr3+ ions over the entire concentration range. © 2013 Verlag der Zeitschrift für Naturforschung, Tübingen.