Challenges in Measuring of Physical Properties of Liquid Phases for Material and Process Optimisation

The exact knowledge of thermo-physical properties of molten phases is crucial to modern metallurgy. It leads to optimized process windows including better metal/slag separation, suitable slag selection or reduced slag/refractory wetting. The most important properties are melting and boiling point, electrical- and thermal conductivity, melting and transition enthalpies, wetting angle, density, viscosity and surface tension. The aim of this paper is to present opportunities, methods and uncertainties of characterization of this kind of materials. This will be examplified by measuring three physical properties (density, viscosity and surface tension).