Abstract
By the use of molecular dynamics simulation (MD), varieties of properties including structural, transport, optical and thermodynamic properties can be calculated. Since this feature is very attractive to the analyses of refining slags, its applicability was studied. CaO-SiO2 melts with CaO contents ranging from 40 to 60 at% were simulated at 1873 K. The calculated pair distribution functions and general tendency of silicon ion fractions with various number of non-bridging oxygen ions agreed well with experiments reported elsewhere. The calculated diffusion coefficient of every ion as a function of CaO content was also in good agreement with the measured values. These demonstrate the promising applicability of MD to slag analyses.
The melt of 45at%CaO-45at%SiO2-10at%CaF2 was also simulated by MD to study the effects of fluorine addition to silicate melt. The hypothesis of the existence of di-fluorine ions in some thermodynamic modeling of slags was not verified due to the lack of appropriateness of the interatomic potentials used in this study.
