Delineation of the Problem of Soret Diffusion

The phenomenological heat of transport is analyzed for the simple cases of self‐diffusion via a vacancy mechanism and of diffusion of solutes in interstitial solid solutions. The heat of transport is shown to be equal to the sum of an energy‐conversion term and an energy‐transport term. The latter is a function of the details of the mechanism and is of kinetic character; a positive contribution is made to it by the localized normal modes about a solute atom. The energy‐conversion term has a thermodynamic character once the diffusion mechanism is specified, and by its use one can decompose energies of solution or of vaporization into a part associated with the solute atom and another part associated with the solvent lattice.