Electrical conductivity of GdCl3-LiCl and GdCl3-LiCl-Gd2O3 molten systems

Abstract

The electrical conductivity of LiCl–GdCl3 molten systems with the gadolinium chloride additions ranging from 0 to 23 mol % was measured depending on both the temperature and concentration of GdCl3. The molar conductivity of the molten GdCl3–LiCl system is calculated taking into account the assumption of additivity of the molar volume of the mixture. The obtained temperature dependencies can be approximated by Arrhenius-type equation. The effective activation energy, Ea, increased with the GdCl3 content. The liquidus temperatures of the studied systems were determined by differential scanning calorimetry. The high-temperature Raman spectra of LiCl–GdCl3 chloride melts were recorded. In addition, the conductivity of 0.77LiCl–0.23GdCl3 molten system with 1 mol % of Gd2O3 was measured. The investigation demonstrates that the addition of gadolinium oxide results in a decrease of the conductivity of the chloride molten system and growth of its liquidus temperature

Keywords

• ac impedance
• gadolinium chloride
• liquidus temperature
• raman spectra