Thermochemistry of alloys of transition metals and lanthanide metals with some IIIB and IVB elements in the periodic table

Abstract

We have conducted systematic studies in this laboratory of the thermochemistry of transition metal and rare earth alloys by high temperature calorimetric methods. An overview of the thermochemistry of the alloys of the transition metals and lanthanide metals with elements in the IIIB and IVB columns of the periodic table is presented. The enthalpies of formation of most of these compounds were determined by high temperature direct synthesis calorimetry. This review summarizes the trends between the enthalpies of formation of the TR–X and LA–X alloys (where X is a IIIB or IVB element) and the atomic numbers of the transition metal and lanthanide metal. We compare our measured enthalpies of formation of each alloy family for the 3d, 4d and 5d transition metal elements. We also compare our experimental measurements with predicted values on the basis of Miedema’s semiempirical model. This review shows examples of a correlation between the enthalpies of formation of the alloys of the lanthanide elements with the non-metal elements in the IIIB and IVB columns in the periodic table. We also show some comparisons of our measured enthalpies of formation with the predictions of Gschneidner for the lanthanide alloys.