A New Model for the Thermal Conductivity of Molten Salts

A new model based on rough hard-sphere theory is proposed for the thermal conductivity of molten salts. The model incorporates a smooth hard-sphere contribution using the properties of argon, as well as characteristic parameters based on the melting point of the molten salt. It is demonstrated that it is possible to correlate the thermal conductivity of monovalent and multivalent molten salts within experimental error using this approach. Furthermore, in salts with a common anion, the single adjustable parameter in the model exhibits regular behavior with the molecular weight of the salt. It is also shown that the thermal conductivity of several molten-salt mixtures can be predicted without any mixture parameters.