An approach to controlling morphology and size is presented through the combination of laser-induced nucleation and polymer additives. Here, we apply the technique of non-photochemical laser-induced nucleation to irradiate a supersaturated solution (S = 1.15) of cesium chloride (CsCl). The solution immediately responds to laser exposure, and spherical crystallites are produced along the laser pathway. The crystals gradually grow into snowflake-like crystals with different sizes. In this report, two types of acidic polymers including polyepoxysuccinic acid (PESA) and polyaspartic acid (PASA) were individually added in supersaturated CsCl solution to shape its crystalline morphology; we found that a particular property of this control from PESA is uniformity in modification of crystal sizes. Additionally, we observed that both PESA and PASA were able to decrease crystal growth velocity and the quantity of crystals after laser irradiation. With the effect of more than 0.2 wt % PESA in solution, spherical crystallites were initially induced by laser; after that, crystal growth velocities and sizes became slower and smaller with increase in mass fraction of PESA, which led to identical crystal sizes. With the effect of more than 5 wt % PESA, the resulting crystalline morphology obtained by laser was flower-like crystals, whilst cuboid-shaped crystals could be obtained by spontaneous nucleation. Classical nucleation theory, crystal growth rate, and additives as large-size impurities were discussed to analyze the underlying mechanism of the change in morphology.

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This paper is an attempt to extract useful thermodynamic information from the experimental activity of zinc in Zn-Bi binary liquid alloy at different temperatures. The molecular interaction volume model (MIVM) was adopted to calculate a number of temperature dependent thermodynamic functions, including activity, free energy of mixing, concentration fluctuations in the long-wavelength limits, and diffusion. The reasonable agreement of the modeled thermodynamic parameters with the existing experimental data verified that the MIVM is quite convenient and reliable in the assessment of the thermodynamic properties of binary liquid alloys. K e y w o r d s : Zn-Bi, thermodynamic properties, molecular interaction volume model

The self-association model is an effective theoretical method for determining the thermodynamic parameters of immiscible molten binary alloys. However, two important parameters (the ratios of numbers of two atoms in the cluster n and the interchange energy W) in the model had confusing temperature dependences, which prevented the statistical mechanical model from accurately predicting the physical and chemical properties at various temperatures. The ratios of the two atoms in the cluster and the interchange energy were proposed in this study to be linear with temperature, respectively, to analyze the segregation of liquid Zn–Bi alloys. The hypothesis about two key parameters is helpful to predict the segregating nature of liquid Zn–Bi alloys, as evidenced by the good accordance of the predicted thermophysical properties (activity, free energy of mixing, miscibility gap, entropy of mixing, partial molar entropy, and concentration fluctuation) with the existing experimental data.

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The thermodynamic properties of fission products in molten salt and liquid metal have a great influence on the disposal of nuclear waste in the nuclear fuel cycle industrial system. This paper attempts to extract useful thermodynamic information from the only few experimental activities of lanthanides (Ce, Pr, La) in liquid Bi at different temperatures. The molecular interaction volume model (MIVM) was adopted to model and predict some temperature-dependent thermodynamic functions, including activity, infinite dilute activity coefficient, and molar excess Gibbs energy. The minor average of Δ G ¯ error indicated that assuming εji − εii is a constant is reasonable. On this basis, the natural logarithm of the interaction coefficients and the natural logarithm of the infinite dilute activity coefficient of lanthanides (Ce, Pr, La) in the Bi-based metal melt, these two parameters, show the linear relationship with the reciprocal of temperature. The reasonable agreement of the modeled thermodynamic parameters with the existing experimental data verified that the MIVM is quite convenient and reliable, which can provide guidance for separating fission products from molten salt reactors.