Thermodynamics of liquid silicates, a preliminary report
Abstract
We propose a model for the calculation of the thermodynamic properties of silicate liquids. In our model we make use of the Flory-Huggins regular solution formalism for liquid solutions. In this preliminary paper we have limited ourselves to demonstrating that the Flory-Huggins formalism describes satisfactorily the thermodynamic properties of simple liquid silicate solutions, i.e. systems in which only end-member components or solid solutions thereof occur as solid phases and where there is only one well-behaved liquid phase. To compare theoretical results with laboratory observations we need thermodynamic data for liquid silicates. For this reason we have included in this report a review of the available information on the latent heat of fusion of silicate minerals.