Thermochemical and phase diagram studies of the Bi–Ni–Sn system

The phase diagram Bi–Ni–Sn was studied by means of SEM (scanning electron microscopy)/EDS (energy-dispersive solid state spectrometry), by DSC (differential scanning calorimetry) and RT-XRD (room temperature X-Ray diffraction) in order to attain more information about this ternary phase diagram. The samples were positioned in three isopleths with nickel contents of: 0.05 (section 1), 0.10 (section 2) and 0.15 (section 3) mole fractions, respectively. The mole fractions of Sn corresponding to the particular sections were as follows: from 0.19 to 0.76 (section 1), from 0.18 to 0.72 (section 2); from 0.17 to 0.68 (section 3). Mixtures of pure metals were sealed under vacuum in amorphous silica ampoules and annealed at 350 °C. A binary Bi–Sn eutectic sample was synthesized and used as internal standard. The existence of a previously reported ternary eutectic reaction was confirmed. Liquidus temperatures were identified and the results were compared to CALPHAD-type calculations. It was found that ternary samples’ liquidus temperatures were higher than the calculated ones. Six more groups of thermal arrests were registered except the eutectic and liquidus related peaks.