Vitaliy G. Goncharov | Searcharxiv

arXiv2025

Thermodynamic modeling of the LiCl-KCl-LaCl$_3$ system with Bayesian model selection and uncertainty quantification

Chloride molten salts are increasingly used in pyroprocessing techniques for the separation of lanthanides. Understanding thermodynamic properties of these salts is essential to predict their critical characteristics and optimize the separation process. Several thermodynamic models, including the associate model, the two-sublattice ionic model, and the modified quasichemical model with quadruplet approximation (MQMQA), have been utilized in the literature to capture the complexity of molten salts. In the present work, the Bayes factor is used to guide the model selection process for thermodynamic modeling of the KCl-LaCl3 system and provide statistical comparison of various models. The results indicate that the MQMQA model is the most favorable one based on available data. The LiCl-KCl-LaCl3 system has been further modelled with uncertainty quantification (UQ) using MQMQA with the thermodynamic properties of compounds in KCl-LaCl3 predicted by the quasiharmonic approach in terms of first-principles phonon calculations as a function of temperature. The calculated phase stability shows excellent agreement with experimental data, indicating that an appropriate thermodynamic model is important for accurately predicting critical characteristics of complex molten salts.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2024

Molecular interaction volume model of mixing enthalpy for molten salt system: An integrated calorimetry-model case study of LaCl$_3$-(LiCl-KCl)

Calorimetric determination of enthalpies of mixing ($Δ$H$_{\rm mix}$) of multicomponent molten salts often employs empirical models that lack parameters with clear physical interpretation (e.g., coordination numbers, molar volumes, and pair potentials). Although such physics informed models are not always needed, a thermodynamic understanding of the relationships between excess energies of mixing and local to intermediate solvation structures is particularly important for pyrochemical separation, as is the case for lanthanides (Ln), which are common neutron poisons and critical industrial elements found in spent nuclear fuels. Here we implement the molecular interaction volume model (MIVM) to synthesize information from experimentally measured $Δ$H$_{\rm mix}$ (using high temperature melt drop calorimetry) and the distribution of solvation structures from ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) simulations. This was demonstrated by a case study of molten salt system consisted of LaCl$_3$ mixing with a eutectic LiCl-KCl (58mol% to 42mol%) at 873 K and 1133 K. The parameters modelled from MIVM were used to extrapolate excess Gibbs energy ($Δ$G$_{\rm mix}$), and compositional dependence of La$^{3+}$ activity in the LaCl$_3$-(LiCl-KCl) system. In contrast, by AIMD or polarizable ion model (PIM) simulations, a significant deviation regarding the predicted $Δ$H$_{\rm mix}$ was seen if computed directly from the molecular dynamic trajectories. The integrated experimental and simulation data within the MIVM formalism are generalizable to a wide variety of molten salts and demonstrate a significant improvement over currently employed methods to study molten salts for nuclear and separations sciences.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗