This publication deals with the practical challenge of describing the impurity influence on the fixed-point temperature of zinc. For this, the sum of individual estimate (SIE) approach is applied to miniaturized fixed-point cells (MFPC) filled with high-purity zinc that can be used in industrial applications. This includes comparative analyses by glow discharge mass spectroscopy as well as mass spectroscopy with inductive coupled plasma to quantify the impurity concentrations in zinc. Furthermore, the element-specific and concentration-dependent temperature deviations are presented for the fixed-point material zinc. For this, binary phase diagrams as well as thermal calculations and experimental data were analysed to extract the relevant sensitivity coefficients. Besides, results from SIE analyses of MFPCs are presented and their uncertainties are compared. On this basis, practical limits of the SIE method are identified and discussed.

Blackbodies are sources of temperature radiation that are used for calibration of radiation thermometers. Their effective emissivity should be close to the value of 1 to approximate an ideal Planckian radiator. Their effective emissivity depends on the geometry of their cavity and the used material. It can be estimated by measurements, but often it is calculated by numerical methods. For typical graphite blackbodies, it was shown in the past that high effective emissivities better than 0.999 can be reached. In this paper, calculations of the effective emissivity of a alumina blackbody are presented. Alumina is a new material for blackbodies, with different radiation properties. Using two calculation methods (integrative cavity method and Monte Carlo method), the effective cavity emissivity for blank and coated alumina is estimated. It is shown that effective spectral emissivities up to 0.999 87 can be reached.