Preparation of anhydrous lanthanum chloride for LaCl3: Ce3+ crystal growth

The preparation of anhydrous lanthanum chloride for LaCl3: Ce3+ crystal growth by chlorinating sintering dehydration process is reported in this paper. The dehydration procedure of LaCl3 · 7H2O was investigated by DTA/TG analysis in order to explore an effective way to avoid the hydrolysis reaction. Using LaCl3 · 7H2O as the starting materials, anhydrous lanthanum chloride was prepared by the dehydration treatment in HCl atmosphere. The optimum conditions for the chlorinating sintering dehydration process had been obtained by a series of experiments. To confirm the purity of the anhydrous lanthanum chloride obtained, it had been used to grow LaCl3: Ce3+ single crystals. In the chlorinating sintering dehydration process, the anhydrous lanthanum chloride with high purity can be prepared by means of sintering LaCl3 · 7H2O at 220-230°C for 6-7h in dried HCl atmosphere. The anhydrous lanthanum chloride is applied to grow colorless transparent LaCl3: Ce3+ single crystals successfully.