Thermal decomposition of formates. Part VIII. Thermal dehydration of Dy(III), Ho(III), Er(III), Tm(III), Yb(III) and Lu(III) formate dihydrates

The thermal dehydration of some rare earth metal formate dihydrates were studied by means of thermogravimetry, differential thermal analysis and differential scanning calorimetry.The dehydration took place successively as a one step reaction for all of the formate dihydrates examined. The reaction order of dehydration was found to be $\text{2}\text{3}$ for all of the salts examined, which indicated that the rate of dehydration was controlled by a chemical process at a phase boundary.The values of the activation energy, frequency factor and the enthalpy change of dehydration for all of the dihydrates were 108–142 kJ mole^?1, 10¹⁶–10¹⁷ min^?1 and 109–147 kJ mole^?1, respectively.Both the temperature at which the dehydration occurred and the enthalpy change increased as the reciprocal of the radius of the metallic ion increased.