The Born-Mayer Model for Ionic Solids and the Heats of Formation and Lattice Spacings of Alkali Halide Solid Solutions

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Abstract
Previous attempts to calculate the heats accompanying formation of alkali halide solid solutions from the component salts have met with only limited success. The difficulties may have originated either in the use of Vegard's law to obtain lattice spacings of the solutions or in the general inadequacy of the model employed in computing the energies of the lattices concerned. Since earlier studies were based on the old Born concept of ionic solids, it was of interest to examine the subject again using as a basis the more refined treatment due to Born and Mayer. An expression for the potential energy of a crystalline solution has been developed in terms of the known interaction parameters of the pure constituents and has been used to compute the equilibrium spacings and heats of formation of three chosen systems. The calculated results are compared with experiment. The comparison suggests that further refinement in the model is perhaps necessary before the small changes in lattice spacings and heat contents which accompany solid solution formation can be completely accounted for.

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