Liquid crystals under pressure, phase diagrams

The pressure-temperature phase diagrams also serve to highlight the fact that the polymorphic transition temperature varies with pressure, which is an important consideration in the supercritical fluid processing of materials in which crystallization occurs invariably at elevated pressures. Qualitative prediction of various phase changes (liquid/vapor, solid/vapor, solid/liquid, solid/liquid/vapor) at equilibrium under supercritical fluid conditions can be made by reference to the well-known Le Chatelier s principle. Accordingly, an increase in pressure will result in a decrease in the volume of the system. For most materials (with water being the most notable exception), the specific volume of the liquid and gas phase is less than that of the solid phase, so that... 

Numerous investigations have been done regarding the liquidus surface, die isothermal sections and the vertical sections in the stable and metastable systems. The other investigations on die ternary system concern the solubility measurements of carbon in the "y and liquid phases which go always widi activity measme-ments, the determination of the phase diagram under high pressures and die kinetics studies of die austenite transformation in martensite or bainite because these phases are important in die forecast of mechanical properties of steel. The main experimental investigations on crystal structure, phase equilibria and thermodynamics are gathered in Table 1. 

The most complete method of presenting the interaction of one chemical species with another is to study the physical state of all possible mixtures of the two compounds under varying conditions of temperature and pressure. The construction of phase equilibria diagrams (180, 181, 182) presents such a description. Further, more complicated phase diagrams delineate the physical state (solid, liquid crystal, liquid) of any mixture of 3 or 4 components at a given temperature and pressure. 

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