Temperature dependence of the bulk and surface properties of liquid Zn–Cd alloys

Abstract

The effects of temperature on the bulk and surface properties of liquid Zn–Cd alloys have been theoretically investigated, using a combination of self association model, Darken’s thermodynamic equation for diffusion, empirical model for viscosity and a statistical mechanics model. The results from this study show that change in temperature resulted in cross-over effects in bulk and surface properties. We also found that with an increase in temperature, a pronounced asymmetry of viscosity isotherm is significantly reduced, and viscosity isotherm exhibited anomalous behaviour. Our results reveal that the homocoordination tendency in Zn–Cd liquid alloys is not strong and reduces with increasing temperature. The study further suggests a pronounced segregation of Cd-atoms at the surface of Zn–Cd liquid alloys and the extent of segregation reduces with temperature. We as well found that, in addition to the reported understanding that size-factor determines the compositional location of asymmetry of the viscosity isotherm, temperature is an operating parameter that has effect, not only on the composition of asymmetry, but also on the magnitude of asymmetry. In all the properties investigated, the most pronounced effect of temperature (52.9 $$\%$$ ) is on the viscosity while the least effect (7.1 $$\%$$ ) is on the surface tension.