American Journal of Anal yt ical Chemistry, 2011, 2, 270-275
doi:10.4236/ajac.2011.22033 Published Online May 2011 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ajac)
Study on Thermodynamics and Kinetics for the Reaction of
Magnesium Diboride and Water by Microcalorimetry
Fengqi Zhao, Xiaoling Xing, Chuan Xiao, Rongzu Hu, Liang Xue, Hongxu Gao, Libai Xiao, Ting An
National Key Lab of Science and Technology on Combustion and Explosion, Xi’an Modern Chemistry
Research Institute, Xi’an, China
Received October 3, 2010; revised December 15, 2010; accepted December 29, 2010
Abstract
An exothermic reaction between MgB2 and water was observed in our laboratory at high temperature, al-
though no obvious reaction occurred at room temperature. The reaction process of MgB2 and water was
therefore studied by using microcalorimetry. The results showed that the reaction enthalpies of MgB2 with
water and the formation enthalpies of MgB2 at T = (323.15, 328.15, 333.15 and 338.15) K are (–313.15,
–317.85, –322.09, –329.27) kJmol–1, and (–238.96, –237.73, –236.50, –234.30) kJmol–1, respectively. The
standard enthalpy of formation and standard molar heat capacity of MgB2 obtained by extrapolation method
are –245.11 kJmol–1 and 246 J mol–1K–1, respectively. The values of activation energy E, pre-exponential
factor A and the reaction order for the reaction of MgB2 and water over the temperature range from 323.15 K
to 338.15 K are 50.80 kJmol–1, 104.78 s–1 and about 1.346, respectively. The positive values of G


and
and negative value of indicate that the reaction can take place easily above 314.45 K.
H S 
Keywords: Magnesium Diboride, Water, Microcalorimetry, Thermodynamics, Kinetics
1. Introduction
Since the discovery of the superconductive property of
magnesium diboride (MgB2) in 2001, its synthetic me-
thods [1-4], single crystals growth [5], spectral properties
[6], superconductive characteristics [7], applications [8]
and synthesis reaction mechanism under vacuum [9] are
widely researched lately. Up to now, the interactional
properties between MgB2 and solvents have never been
investigated, however.
Boride is an important component of fuel-rich propel-
lant, but it has difficulties in the ignition and combustion.
One of the most effective methods to improve the per-
formance of boron is to add combustible metals by che-
mical combination. In solid fuel ramjet’s development,
the propulsion application obtained by the reaction of Mg
and water is the most popular topic of the water ramjet.
For a deeper investigation of the potential applications of
MgB2 in special solid propellants, the reaction of MgB2
and water was carried out by our laboratory to under-
stand the physiochemical properties of MgB2 in solid pro-
pellants. We found for the first time that the MgB2 and
water do not react visibly under room temperature, but
when the temperature rises, an exothermic reaction hap-
pens obviously. The aim of this work is to describe the
thermodynamic and kinetic properties of the reaction,
and the investigation will offer valuable suggestions for
the application of MgB2 on chemical propulsion aspect.
2. Experimental
2.1. Sample and Equipment
The sample (MgB2) used in the experiment was prepared
by Northwest Institute for Non-ferrous Metal Research.
Its purity was improved from 95% up to 99.4% after re-
crystallized by our laboratory. The water was twice-dis-
tillated before use with its electrical conductivity being
(0.8 - 1.2) × 104 Sm–1.
All measurements were made using a RD496-2000
Calvet microcalorimeter. Two replicates of each sample
were tested. The enthalpy of dissolution of KCl (spectrum
purity) in distilled water measured at 298.15 K was 17.234
kJmol–1, which was an excellent accord with the litera-
ture value 17.241 kJmol–1 [10], showing that the device
for measuring enthalpy used in this work was reliable.

F. Q. ZHAO ET AL.271
2.2. Experiments
2.2.1. The Reaction of MgB2 and Distilled Water at a
Heating Rate of 0.2 Kmin–1
Certain amount of MgB2 and distilled water were mixed
in standard vessel at 298.15 K. The whole device was put
into the furnace. A heating rate of 0.2 Kmin–1 was em-
ployed from 298.15 K to 348.15 K. The product was
dried under 313.15 K and the element analysis was then
carried out.
2.2.2. Element Analysis
VarioE III element analysis equipment from German was
employed to detect the content of H after the reaction. S4
Pioneer X-ray fluorescence spectrometer was used to
determine the contents of both Mg and B, and the field
emission scanning electron microscopy from FEI Com-
pany in Holand was also used to determine the contents
of Mg, B and O.
2.2.3. The Reaction of MgB2 and Distilled Water at
Different Temperatures
The reaction of MgB2 and distilled water was carried out
at 323.15, 328.15, 333.15 and 338.15 K, respectively.
3. Results and Discussion
3.1. The Result of the Reaction of MgB2 and
Distilled Water at a Heating Rate of 0.2
Kmin–1
The dependence of the heat flow of the reaction on reac-
tion temperature (reaction time) was shown in Figure 1.
From Figure 1, one can see that the reaction do not pro-
ceed at 298.15 K. When the temperature rises up to
312.15 K, the reaction of MgB2 and water begins and the
reaction rate reaches a maximal point when the tempera-
ture rises to 314.45 K.
Figure 1. The heat flow curve of the reaction of MgB2 and
water at a heating rate of 0.2 K·min–1.
3.2. Element Analysis
The element H was determined by VarioELⅢ element
analysis equipment for three times, and the results were
3.00%, 3.02% and 3.00%, respectively. The content of
Mg was 36.63% by using the X-ray fluorescence spec-
trometer. The element analysis results obtained by the
field emission scanning electron microscopy were shown
in both Figure 2 and Table 1.
From the results of the element analyses, the reaction
can be deduced as
22 226
3MgB6HO 4B3Mg(OH) BH

 (1)
The results of the element analyses are close to the
theoretical calculation: B 19.81%, Mg 33.43%, O 44.01%,
H 2.75%.
3.3. The Standard Enthalpy of Formation of
MgB2
According to the Equation (2), we get the enthalpy of
formation of MgB2 as in Equation (3).
Figure 2. The electronic picture of the sample after the re-
action.
Table 1. The content of each element.
No. B O Mg total
1 20.03 45.95 34.02 100.00
2 19.96 46.18 33.86 100.00
3 19.89 46.49 33.62 100.00
4 20.06 46.41 33.53 100.00

F. Q. ZHAO ET AL. 272
rmfp fr
H
HH
2
(2)
m2 mm
m26rmm 2
3(MgB)4(B)3(Mg(OH) )
(BH)6(HO)
fff
ff
HHH
HHH

  (3)
where ΔfHm is the enthalpy of formation of each com-
pound; ΔrHm is the enthalpy of reaction.
The enthalpy of formation of MgB2 could be obtained
by Equation(4) [11].
2
26
2
θ
m2 mB
298.15
θ
m2 Mg(OH)
298.15
θ
m26BH rm
298.15
θ
m2 HO
298.15
3(MgB)4(B)d
3(Mg(OH))d
(BH)d
6(HO)d
T
ff
T
f
T
f
T
f
H
HcT
H
cT
HcT
HcT





 



 



 






H









(4)
Where c is the molar heat capacity and θ
mf
H
 is the
standard enthalpy of formation of each compound.
The determined reaction enthalpy of MgB2 and water
at different temperatures were listed in Table 2. Other
necessary data for calculation were listed in Table 3.
By substituting the data taken from Tables 2 and 3 to
Equation (4), the formation enthalpies of MgB2 at 323.15,
328.15, 333.15 and 338.15 K are –238.96, –237.73,
–236.50 and –234.30 kJ·mol–1, respectively.
Additionally, the standard enthalpy of formation, mo-
lar heat capacity and specific heat capacity of MgB2 is
–245.11 kJmo l –1, 246 Jmo l–1K–1 and 5.36 J·g–1·K–1,
respectively, which indicates that MgB2 has high thermal
capacity compared to other compounds.
Table 2. The enthalpies of reaction of MgB2 and water at
different temperatures.
T（K） –ΔrHm (kJ·mol–1)
323.15 313.55
328.15 317.85
333.15 322.09
338.15 329.27
Table 3. The parameters for calculation of the formation
enthalpy of MgB2.
cp (J·mol–1·K–1) ΔfHӨ (kJ·mol–1)
H2O（l） 75.30 –285.84
B(s) 11.97 0
B2H6(g) 56.4 31.4
Mg(OH)2(s) 77.03 –924.66
3.4. The Kinetic Parameters of the Reaction of
MgB2 and Water
By putting the original data in Table 4, –(dH/dt)i, (H/H∞)i,
H∞, 1, 2,,iL

, into the kinetic equation (5) [12], the
values of n and lnk listed in Table 5 are obtained, where
n is the reaction order and k the reaction rate constant.
00
1d
lnlnln1 1,2,,
dii
HH
kni L
Ht H

 

 

 

 
 

(5)
From Table 5, one can see that the values of n are
close at different temperatures, and lnk increase slightly
with temperature rising.
The Equation (6) was applied to calculate the values of
activation energy E and pre-exponential factor A by the
slope and the intercept of the linear.
ln lnE kA
RT
 (6)
The value of E is 50.80 kJ·mol–1 and A is 104.78 s–1.
With the data of E and A, the entropy of activation
(S


), enthalpy of activation (
H

), and Gibbs free
energy of activation (G


) of the reaction processes of
MgB2 and water under different temperatures were ob-
tained by Equations (7) and (8) and shown in Table 6.
ln RT GRT
Nhk

 (7)
ln ln
B
k kHS
TRTRh

 
 (8)
where kB is the Boltzmann constant (1.3807 × 10–23
J·K–1), and h is the Plank constant (6.626 × 10–34 J·s–1).
Table 6 The values of , and G S 
H

 of the
reaction process
The positive values of G

and
H

, and the ne-
gative value of S


show that the reaction can easily
take place when the temperature is high enough.
4. Conclusions
1) The reaction of MgB2 and water will not happen until
the environment temperature reaches 312.15 K.
2) The enthalpies of formation of MgB2 at the tem-
peratures of (323.15, 328.15, 333.15 and 338.15) K are
(–238.96, –237.73, –236.50 and –234.30) kJmol–1, re-
spectively. The standard enthalpy of formation of MgB2
obtained is –245.11 kJmol–1.
3) The activation energy E and pre-exponential factor
A of the reaction were obtained as 50.80 kJmol–1 and
104.78 s
–1 respectively. The values of n are close under
different temperatures, and lnk increases slightly with
temperature rising. The entropy of activation (S


),
enthalpy of activation (
H


), and Gibbs free energy of

F. Q. ZHAO ET AL. 273
Table 4. The original data of the reaction process of MgB2 and water at different temperatures.
T（K） M (g) mwater (g) t(s) –(dH/dt)I (mJ·s–1) (H/H0)i ΔHr (kJ·mol–1)
323.15 0.0237 2.0010 300 2.5979 0.0349 –313.5
600 2.6089 0.1117
900 2.5500 0.1837
1200 2.8444 0.261
1500 2.8764 0.3428
1800 2.6442 0.4219
2100 2.2974 0.4921
2400 1.9486 0.5524
2700 1.6397 0.6035
3000 1.3934 0.6465
3300 1.1892 0.6833
3600 1.0295 0.7148
3900 0.8948 0.7421
4200 0.7824 0.7659
4500 0.6912 0.7868
4800 0.6111 0.8054
328.15 0.0248 2.0008 300 1.3733 0.7485 –317.8
600 1.1056 0.7834
900 0.9304 0.8121
1200 0.7702 0.8360
1500 0.6424 0.8559
1800 0.5498 0.8727
2100 0.472 0.8872
2400 0.4106 0.8996
2700 0.3597 0.910
3000 0.3181 0.9201
3300 0.2815 0.9285
3600 0.2528 0.9360
3900 0.2275 0.942
4200 0.2050 0.9489
4500 0.1869 0.9544
4800 0.1716 0.9595
333.15 0.0348 2.0011 300 5.8786 0.0333 –322.1
600 8.2060 0.1682
900 9.0554 0.3347
1200 7.3002 0.4903
1500 5.2226 0.6072
1800 3.6957 0.6901
2100 2.6709 0.7492

F. Q. ZHAO ET AL. 274
2400 1.9952 0.7925
2700 1.5389 0.8253
3000 1.2169 0.8510
3300 0.9788 0.8715
3600 0.8043 0.8881
3900 0.6734 0.9019
4200 0.5703 0.9136
4500 0.4889 0.9235
4800 0.4260 0.9320
338.15 0.0219 2.0006 300 9.0078 0.3364 –329.27
600 6.7631 0.5705
900 4.2677 0.7286
1200 2.6545 0.8267
1500 1.7327 0.8893
1800 1.1941 0.9312
2100 0.8504 0.9604
Table 5. The values of n, lnk and the correlation coefficient r for the reaction of MgB2 and H2O.
T/K n ln k r
323.15 1.390 –10.212 0.9999
328.15 1.317 –9.892 0.9988
333.15 1.389 –9.556 0.9987
338.15 1.289 –9.394 0.9891
mean 1.346
Table 6. The values of

G,


S
and



of the reaction process.
T（K）  G (kJ mol–1)



(kJ mol–1) 

S
(J mol–1 K–1)
323.15 391.37 142.29 –770.79
328.15 396.59 144.50 –768.23
333.15 401.74 146.69 –765.56
338.15 407.36 148.88 –764.38
activation () of the reaction processes of MgB2 and
water under different temperatures show that the reaction
can easily take place when the temperature is high enough.
G 
5. Acknowledgements
Financial assistance from the Science and Technology
Foundation of the National Key Lab of Science and
Technology on Combustion and Explosive in China
(Grant No. 9140C3501020901) is gratefully acknowl-
edged.
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