Kinetics of nonisothermal dehydration of unirradiated and γ-ray irradiated neodymium (III) acetate hydrate

Abstract

Abstract Kinetics of dehydration of unirradiated and γ-ray irradiated neodymium (III) acetate hydrate with 103 kGy total γ-ray dose absorbed in air atmosphere were studied by isoconversional nonisothermal method. The dehydration proceeds in two steps with the elimination of 0.8 and 0.4 mol of H2O, respectively. This result indicates that the investigated neodymium (III) acetate hydrate contains 1.2 mol of crystalline water in its structure. The dehydration reactions are best described by nucleation (A 2 model) and gas diffusion (D 4 model) for unirradiated and γ-ray irradiated samples, respectively. Analysis of the kinetic data using linear and nonlinear isoconversional methods showed that the apparent activation energy, Ea (kJ/mol) is dependent on the conversion degree, α, of the dehydration process. The Ea−α plots for both unirradiated and γ-ray irradiated neodymium (III) acetate hydrate showed that the dehydration is a complex process and contains multistep reactions. The results showed that γ-ray irradiation has a significant effect on the kinetics and thermodynamic parameters of the dehydration reaction. Powder X-ray diffraction showed that neodymium (III) acetate hydrate has a monoclinic system (SG P2/m) and no phase transformation was detected by γ-ray irradiation up to 103 kGy absorbed dose. The system maintains the same crystal structure before and after dehydration.