Assessment of size effect on the surface properties of some binary liquid alloys

The effect of size in the calculation of the surface properties of some liquid binary alloys has been studied using the theoretical model developed by Prasad et al. (Phys. Chem. Liq. 27 (1994) 179). The systems studied include Na-Cs, Sn-Ga and Cu-Ni, which manifest a tendency to phase separation, in addition to Li-Ba and Na-Te, which exhibit a tendency to compound formation. Our results indicate that for those systems studied with phase separating tendencies, effects due to size considerations are quite significant. In general, we infer from our calculations that for the same value of order energy W/KBT, the effect of size is to reduce the surface concentration and to increase the surface tension, while the reverse holds when size effects are neglected. Compound forming systems do not follow this trend as the impact of size appears to depend both on the relative sizes of the alloying components and the degree of compound formation in the alloy. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.