Calculation of Surface Tension of Multicomponent Silicate Solutions

Surface phenomena play a major role in metallurgical processes; their operation results, among others, from the surface tension of liquid oxidic systems. One of the methods of determining surface tension of oxidic systems is performing calculations with Butler’s method. Surface tension was calculated for two- and three-component liquid oxidic systems typical of metallurgical processes. The determined dependence of surface tension in FeO-SiO2 at temp. 1773 K and CaO-SiO2 at temp.1873 K showed that with the growing participation of SiO2 surface tension decreased. Analogous calculations were performed for three-component systems: CaO-Al2O3-SiO2 and MnO-Al2O3- SiO2. The results of calculations of surface tension were determined for temp. 1873 K and compared with the results obtained by T. Tanaka et al. [19]. In both cases the increase of Al2O3 content resulted in a growth of surface tension. The simulation results were higher than experimental result, as compared to the literature data.