A note on the entropy of mixing of liquid sodium-caesium and other binary alkali alloys

The entropy of formation of Na-Cs liquid alloys. ΔS, is nearly ideal. This is surprising considering that the ratio between the pure metal volumes is about 3.0. In this Letter it is shown by means of a density functional calculation that the ratio between the effective volumes in the liquid alloy changes to nearly 1.5. This ratio, used in conjunction with Flory's formula for the entropy of mixing, allows quite accurate reproduction of the ideal behaviour of ΔS. It is also shown that this feature of the ratios of atomic volumes is not exclusive to Na-Cs but is common to all the family of binary liquid alkali alloys. (author)