Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-chemistry-course-of-the-year-4-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2022/paper-1/13/b/solution

The diffusion coefficient relates particle flux to concentration gradient through Fick's first law, . For unbiased isotropic motion in dimensions it can equivalently be defined by the long-time mean squared displacement:
An uncorrelated random walk with jump length and total jump rate has , hence ; correlations introduce a multiplicative correlation factor. The factor counts the directions sharing the total displacement. It does not mean that the same material's single-coordinate diffusivity changes merely by choosing to observe fewer coordinates: in every Cartesian direction of the same isotropic system.
At K, silver iodide is in its fast-ion-conducting phase. For an order-of-magnitude estimate, take a jump length Å and an effective successful jump rate . Then
Thus of order is a reasonable estimate for this superionic conductor. The length and rate are explicitly assumed material scales; the question supplies neither a measured conductivity nor jump data, so an exact numerical coefficient cannot be deduced from temperature alone. The estimate is not presented as an experimentally measured value.

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