Studying Thermochemical Conversion of Sm2O3 to SmCl3 using AlCl3 in LiCl-KCl Eutectic Melt

Abstract

In this report the thermochemical conversion of Sm 2 O 3 to SmCl 3 using AlCl 3 in LiCl-KCl melt at 773 K is discussed. The final product was a mixture of SmCl 3 , Al 2 O 3 , unreacted Sm 2 O 3 and AlCl 3 in the chloride melt. The electrochemical attri-butes of the mixture was analyzed with cyclic voltammetry (CV) and square wave voltammetry (SWV). The crystallo-graphic phases of the mixture were studied with X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique. The major chemical conversion was optimized by varying the effective parameters, such as concentrations of AlCl 3 , duration of reaction and the amount of LiCl-KCl salt. The extent of conversion and qualitative assessment of efficiency of the present protocol were evaluated with fluorescence spectroscopy, UV-Vis spectrophotometry and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) studies of the mixture. Thus, a critical assessment of the thermochemical conversion efficiency was accomplished by analysing the amount of SmCl 3 in LiCl-KCl melt. In the process, a conversion efficiency of 95% was achieved by dou-bling the stoichiometric requirement of AlCl 3 in 50 g of LiCl-KCl salt. The conversion reaction was found to be very fast as the reaction reached equilibrium in 15 min.