PNNL

Abstract

This paper describes the effects of small palladium additions on the phase equilibria in the Ag-CuOx system. Below a concentration of 5 mol%, palladium was found to increase the temperature of the eutectic reaction present in the pseudobinary system, but have little effect on a higher temperature monotectic reaction. However once enough palladium was added to increase the pseudoternary solidus temperature to that of the lower boundary for this three-phase field (~970°C), the lower boundary begins to increase in temperature as well. The addition of palladium also causes the original eutectic point to move to lower silver concentrations, which also causes a convergence of the two new three-phase fields, CuOx + L1 + L2 and CuOx + ? + L1. This suggests that with higher palladium concentrations, a peritectic reaction, ? + L1 + L2 ? CuOx, may eventually be observed in the system.