The origin of the conductivity maximum in molten salts. I. Bismuth chloride.

A new theory is presented to explain the conductivity maxima of molten salts (versus temperature and pressure). In the new theory, conductivity is due to ions hopping from counterion to counterion, and its temperature dependence can be explained with an ordinary Arrhenius equation in which the frequency prefactor A (for hopping opportunities) and activation energy E(a) (for hopping) are density dependent. The conductivity maximum is due to competing effects: as density decreases, the frequency of opportunities for hopping increases, but the probability that an opportunity is successfully hopped decreases due to rising E(a) caused by the increased hopping distance. The theory is successfully applied to molten bismuth (III) chloride, and supported by density-functional based molecular dynamics simulations which not only reproduce the conductivity maximum, but disprove the long-standing conjecture that this liquid features an equilibrium between BiCl(3) molecules, and BiCl(2)(+) and BiCl(4)(-) ions that shifts to the left with increasing temperature.