You wish to remove nitrogen from the near-surface region of a plate of cobalt which is 1.0 cm thick. The plate is placed in a furnace at 417∘ C where an atmosphere of H2 and NH3 reacts with the nitrogen in the cobalt and fixes the surface concentration to 111 ppm (parts per million by mass). If the initial concentration is 3091ppm, how long will it take to reduce the nitrogen concentration to 1662 ppm at a depth of 10μm? The diffusion of nitrogen in cobalt has an activation energy of 100 kJ/mol and a preexponential value (Do) of 0.01 cm2/sec.
Give your answer in units of seconds.