title: Absolute thermodynamic properties of molten salts using the two-phase thermodynamic (2PT) superpositioning method.
abstract: We show that the absolute thermodynamic properties of molten salts (mixtures of KCl and LiCl) can be accurately determined from the two-phase thermodynamic (2PT) method that is based on superpositioning of solid-like and gas-like (hard-sphere) vibrational density of states (DoS). The 2PT predictions are in excellent accordance with those from the thermodynamic integration method; the melting point of KCl evaluated from the free energy and the absolute entropy shows close conformity with the experimental/NIST data. The DoS partitioning shows that the Li(+) ions in the eutectic LiCl-KCl molten mixture are largely solid-like, unlike the K(+) and Cl(-) ions, which have a significant gas-like contribution, for temperatures ranging from 773 K to 1300 K. The solid-like states of the Li(+) ions may have practical implications when employed for chemical and nuclear reprocessing applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA. jacob.eapen@ncsu.edu.
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Brahmananda
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Chakraborty
authors.forename: Jacob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Eapen