In the present work, the Gibbs energies of mixing of liquid alloys of the Ge-Mn-Gd ternary system were determined, which was made on the basis of an analysis of published data on the thermodynamic properties of liquid alloys of boundary binary systems that form the ternary Ge-Mn-Gd, as well as on the basis of the model calculations in these binary systems. To determine the activities of the components, the Gibbs energies of mixing, and the enthalpies of mixing of liquid alloys of the Ge-Mn(Gd) systems, for which alloying process is accompanied by significant heat release, an ideal associated solution model was applied. For the melts of the Mn-Gd system, which are characterized by rather insignificant exothermic effects, a model of regular solutions was used. The surface of the Gibbs energy of mixing for the alloys of the Ge-Mn-Gd ternary system has been determined on the basis of the concentration dependences of the Gibbs energies of mixing obtained for constituent binary systems under the assumption of additivity of pair interactions using the Redlich-Kister-Muggianu method. The obtained topology of the Gibbs energy isolines projections is compared with the thermochemical properties of liquid alloys of this system that we have determined earlier. A comparative analysis of the topology of these surfaces in the Ge-Mn-Gd system led to the conclusion that the surfaces of ΔG and ΔmH monotonically decrease from the manganese-rich angle of the diagram towards the Ge-Gd side of the concentration triangle. The minimum value of the thermodynamic characteristics of mixing of the ternary liquid alloys corresponds to the composition, which coincides with the composition of the most stable intermetallic compound in the Ge-Gd system. From the course of isolines of free energies and integral enthalpies of mixing, one can also conclude about the influence of a short-range order, existed in the Ge-Mn system near the composition with a mole fraction of mangan greater than 0.7, on the properties of ternary alloys in the vicinity of this composition. Thus, the topology of isolines and the large exothermic values of the obtained thermodynamic properties allow us to make a reasonable conclusion that the strong interaction between unlike components inherent in the Ge-Gd system in the solid state is also maintained for liquid alloys of the Ge-Mn-Gd system.
