Liquid silicate, atomizing

Some metals are soluble as atomic species in molten silicates, the most quantitative studies having been made with Ca0-Si02-Al203(37, 26, 27 mole per cent respectively). The results at 1800 K gave solubilities of 0.055, 0.16, 0.001 and 0.101 for the pure metals Cu, Ag, Au and Pb. When these metal solubilities were compared for metal alloys which produced 1 mm Hg pressure of each of these elements at this temperature, it was found drat the solubility decreases as the atomic radius increases, i.e. when die difference in vapour pressure of die pure metals is removed by alloy formation. If the solution was subjected to a temperature cycle of about 20 K around the control temperamre, the copper solution precipitated copper particles which grew with time. Thus the liquid metal drops, once precipitated, remained stable thereafter. 

Since we do not know the solid-liquid oxygen partition coefficient, we must resort to an approximation. Most oxygen atoms are ieO and crystallization rarely changes the total oxygen concentration of the residual silicate melt very significantly. We can assume... 

In the metals, the same type of interatomic force acts between atom of different metals that acts between atoms of a single element. We have already stated that for this reason liquid solutions of many metals with each other exist in wide ranges of composition. There, are many other cases in which two substances ordinarily solid at room temperature are soluble in each other when liquefied. Thus, a great variety of molten ionic crystals are soluble in each other. And among the silicates and other substances held by valence bonds, the liquid phase permits a wide range of compositions. This is familiar from the glasses, which can have a continuous variability of composition and which can then supercool to essentially solid form, still with quite arbitrary compositions, and yet perfectly homogeneous structure. 

Finally we have the metals, made entirely of electropositive atoms. We g n f.hat these atoms are held together bv the metallic bond, similar to the valent hnnHa hut, without the properties of saturation. Thus the metals, like the ionic crystals and the silicates, tend to form indefinitely large structures, crystals or liquids, and tend to have high melting and boiling points and great mechanical strength. We have already seen that the same peculiarity of the metallic bond which prevents the saturation of valence, and hence which makes crystal formation possible, also leads to metallic conduction or the existence of free electrons. 

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