The molar conductivities of the molten systems were determined by using molar volume and conductivity data which had been measured, as a function of the mole fraction of ErCl3 and temperature, by using dilatometry and alternating-current techniques, respectively. It was found that the molar conductivities of molten ErCl3 were smaller than those of molten YCl3; in which a loosely disordered network of edge-sharing octahedral units had been reported to exist. The molar conductivities of the ErCl3-NaCl and ErCl3-.KCl systems increased with decreasing ErCl3 content. When the molar fraction was greater than 0.25, the increase in molar conductivity with molar fraction of ErCl3 was much smaller than that when the molar fraction was less than 0.25. Upon comparing the series of molten rare earth chlorides (table 1), the molar conductivities were found to be affected qualitatively by the cationic radius and the type of linkage (corner- or edge-sharing) of octahedral units.

K.Fukushima, T.Ikumi, J.Mochinaga, R.Takagi, M.Gaune-Escard, Y.Iwadate: Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 1995, 229, 274-9

Table 1

Molar Conductivities of Molten Chlorides at 1150K