Quantification of uncertainty in thermodynamic predictions for vacuum refining of liquid Ag-Pb and Au-Pb binary alloys

The common procedure to calculate vapour-liquid equilibrium (VLE) from an ideal gas and activity coefficient model is evaluated. The reliability of these calculations is assessed through a quantification of the uncertainty in the thermodynamic data of Ag-Pb and Au-Pb binary alloys and propagation of this uncertainty in the calculation of a prediction interval for the vapour-liquid equilibrium results. The advantage of this methodology is that all calculated results include an uncertainty interval, which permits an assessment of the impact of the uncertainty in the thermodynamic data and allows for the validation of VLE diagrams with experimental data to be done on a quantitative basis.