Computational thermodynamic modeling of the Mg-B system

It has been recently discovered that the compound MgB ₂ possesses superconductivity at 39K. To better design and control the fabrication of the MgB ₂ compound, a complete thermodynamic description of the system is desirable. In the present work, the phase equilibria and thermodynamic properties of the binary Mg-B system were analyzed and a complete thermodynamic description of the binary system was obtained by means of the CALPHAD technique using a computerized optimization procedure. The thermodynamic descriptions of pure Mg and B elements were taken from the literature. Based on the experimental data, three binary intermetallic compounds, MgB ₂, MgB ₄ and MgB ₆, were considered. Good agreement was obtained between the calculated results and the available experimental data in the literature.