Compression liquid silica studies

Other macroscopic properties that in principle can be measured are the excess density and the excess compressibility of the interfacial liquid. These excess quantities can be positive or negative and follow from a comparison of the corresponding quantities in systems with the liquid and solid separated. Alternatively, liquid behaviour in pores can be studied. An example of this kind has been given by Derjaguin ) who claims that water in narrow pores of silica gel or Aerosil does not exhibit the typical thermal expansion minimum at 4 C because of structural changes near the surface. Ldring and Findenegg ) studied surface excesses dilatometrically. 

Multicomponent systems that present polyamorphism have also been reported in computer simulation studies. For example, in Ref. [35], it is found that silica has a LLCP at very low temperature. Silica is also a tetrahedral liquid and it shares many of the thermodynamic properties observed in water. In Ref. [35], two silica models were considered. In both models, the interactions among O and Si atoms are isotropic, due to single point charges and short-range interacting sites located on each atom. Both models considered in Ref. [35] are characterized by a LLCP at very low temperature and coexistence between two liquids is observed in out of equilibrium simulations close to one of the spinodal lines (see Fig. 2b). The location of the LLCP was estimated to be below the glass transition in real silica and hence, unaccessible in experiments. We note that polyamorphism in the glass state is indeed observed in compression experiments on amorphous silica [14], and is qualitatively reproduced in computer simulations [89]. Other examples of multicomponent systems that show LLPT in simulations are presented in Refs [65,90]. In these cases, a substance that already shows polymorphism is mixed with a second component. 

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