Vaporization properties of the Sn–25 at.%Li alloy

Abstract This paper reports the results of mass-spectrometer experiments on the vaporization properties of pure Li and two different Sn–25at.%Li alloys heated in a Knudsen effusion source at temperatures from 800 to 1200 K. A Li vaporization energy of 172 kJ/mol was obtained from the analysis of three combined Sn–25at.%Li experiments. Li vapor pressures for Sn–25at.%Li were derived from the data by comparing the IT (Li + ion current×temperature) products from Sn–25at.%Li experiments with the measured IT product from a pure Li experiment at 816 K for which the vapor pressure is 1.8 Pa. The derived vapor pressures are more than three orders of magnitude below the corresponding vapor pressures for pure Li, and they are generally in good agreement with previous data obtained from a variety of different measurement techniques.