Study of heat and mass transfer processes in the Fe-Sn reaction crucible in the presence of high-density electric current

In the search for new magnetically ordered phases of materials, solid-state synthesis technologies in reaction crucibles are used. The final result of the synthesis process in reaction crucibles is conditioned, in particular, by technological factors, the mode of current flow and its density, the achieved temperature in the reaction zone, exposure time, geometrical parameters of the crucible and the reaction zone, etc. The paper presents the results of influence investigation of the reaction volume filling degree with tin melt on the processes of heat and mass transfer during its electrothermal treatment. A model describing diffusion processes in the reaction zone during the synthesis of iron and tin intermetallides under electrothermal treatment has been proposed. The diffusion process in the reaction crucibles of the iron-tin system was investigated by the finite element method in the Comsol Multiphysics software environment. It is shown that the decrease in the degree of filling of the reaction crucible with synthesis components leads to a change in the distribution of current density and a decrease in the temperature in the reaction zone, which affects the mass transfer processes. The results of the work can be used in the analysis of experimental data on the production of intermetallides by reaction synthesis and determination of the necessary technological parameters for the synthesis of new materials.