Metastability

Wilhelm Ostwald was the first to recognise this state of affairs clearly. Indeed, he went further, and made an important distinction. In the second edition of his Lehrbuch der Allgenieinen Chemie, published in 1893, he introduced the concept of metastability, which he himself named. The simplest situation is just instability, which Ostwald likened to an inverted pyramid standing on its point. Once it begins to topple, it becomes ever more unstable until it has fallen on one of its sides, the new condition of stability. If, now, the tip is shaved off the pyramid, leaving a small flat 

The interpretation of metastable phases in terms of Gibbsian thermodynamics is set out simply in a paper by van den Broek and Dirks (1987). 

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Equilibrium constants,, for all possible dimerization reactions are calculated from the metastable, bound, and chemical contributions to the second virial coefficients, B , as given by Equations (6) and (7). The equilibrium constants, K calculated using Equation (3-15). 

IF BINARY SYSTEM CONTAINS NO ORGANIC ACIDS. THE SECOND VIRTAL coefficients ARE USED IN A VOLUME EXPLICIT EQUATION OF STATE TO CALCULATE THE FUGACITY COEFFICIENTS. FOR ORGANIC ACIDS FUGACITY COEFFICIENTS ARE PREDICTED FROM THE CHEMICAL THEORY FOR NQN-IOEALITY WITH EQUILIBRIUM CONSTANTS OBTAINED from METASTABLE. BOUND. ANO CHEMICAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SECOND VIRIAL COEFFICIENTS. 

The structure of residual austenite is metastable, during exploitation it may panially transform into bainite, whereas during quenching this transformation may be caused by the freezing out processing. The transformation of residual austenite into bainite is connected with volume change, whereas diminishing the content of austenite in martensite by 1% causes a 0,07% increase of its volume. 

Systems involving an interface are often metastable, that is, essentially in equilibrium in some aspects although in principle evolving slowly to a final state of global equilibrium. The solid-vapor interface is a good example of this. We can have adsorption equilibrium and calculate various thermodynamic quantities for the adsorption process yet the particles of a solid are unstable toward a drift to the final equilibrium condition of a single, perfect crystal. Much of Chapters IX and XVII are thus thermodynamic in content. 

The limiting compression (or maximum v value) is, theoretically, the one that places the film in equilibrium with the bulk material. Compression beyond this point should force film material into patches of bulk solid or liquid, but in practice one may sometimes compress past this point. Thus in the case of stearic acid, with slow compression collapse occurred at about 15 dyn/cm [81] that is, film material began to go over to a three-dimensional state. With faster rates of compression, the v-a isotherm could be followed up to 50 dyn/cm, or well into a metastable region. The mechanism of collapse may involve folding of the film into a bilayer (note Fig. IV-18). 

PI, PIS Penning ionization [116, 118] Auger deexcitation of metastable noble-gas atoms 4. ... 

MDS Metastable deexcitation spectroscopy [119] Same as PI Surface valence-electron states... 

Many substances exist in two or more solid allotropic fomis. At 0 K, the themiodynamically stable fomi is of course the one of lowest energy, but in many cases it is possible to make themiodynamic measurements on another (metastable) fomi down to very low temperatures. Using the measured entropy of transition at equilibrium, the measured heat capacities of both fomis and equation (A2.1.73) to extrapolate to 0 K, one can obtain the entropy of transition at 0 K. Within experimental... 

Figure A2.5.1. Schematic phase diagram (pressure p versus temperature 7) for a typical one-component substance. The full lines mark the transitions from one phase to another (g, gas liquid s, solid). The liquid-gas line (the vapour pressure curve) ends at a critical point (c). The dotted line is a constant pressure line. The dashed lines represent metastable extensions of the stable phases.

R is the gas constant per mole, while K is the temperature unit Kelvin). The dashed lines represent metastable extensions of the stable phases beyond the transition temperatures. 

Figure A2.5.4. Themiodynamic fimctions (i, n, and C as a fimction of temperature T at eonstant pressure and eomposition x = 1/2) for the two-eomponent system shown in figure A2.5.3. Note the diflferenee between these and those shown for the one-eomponent system shown in figure A2.5.2. The fiinetions shown are dimensionless as in figure A2.5.2. The dashed lines represent metastable extensions (superheating or supereooling) of the one-phase systems.

Figure A2.5.6. Constant temperature isothenns of redueed pressure versus redueed volume for a van der Waals fluid. Full eiirves (ineluding the horizontal two-phase tie-lines) represent stable situations. The dashed parts of the smooth eurve are metastable extensions. The dotted eurves are unstable regions.

Figure A2.5.7. Constant temperature isothenns of reduced Helmlioltz free energy A versus reduced volume V. The two-phase region is defined by the line simultaneously tangent to two points on the curve. The dashed parts of the smooth curve are metastable one-phase extensions while the dotted curves are unstable regions. (The isothenns are calculated for an unphysical r = 0.1, the only effect of which is to separate the isothenns...

Figure A2.5.9. (Ap), the Helmholtz free energy per unit volume in reduced units, of a van der Waals fluid as a fiinction of the reduced density p for several constant temperaPires above and below the critical temperaPire. As in the previous figures the llill curves (including the tangent two-phase tie-lines) represent stable siPiations, the dashed parts of the smooth curve are metastable extensions, and the dotted curves are unstable regions. See text for details.

For T shaped curves, reminiscent of the p, isothemis that the van der Waals equation yields at temperatures below the critical (figure A2.5.6). As in the van der Waals case, the dashed and dotted portions represent metastable and unstable regions. For zero external field, there are two solutions, corresponding to two spontaneous magnetizations. In effect, these represent two phases and the horizontal line is a tie-line . Note, however, that unlike the fluid case, even as shown in q., form (figure A2.5.8). the symmetry causes all the tie-lines to lie on top of one another at 6 = 0 B = 0). 

Figure A3.3.2 A schematic phase diagram for a typical binary mixture showmg stable, unstable and metastable regions according to a van der Waals mean field description. The coexistence curve (outer curve) and the spinodal curve (iimer curve) meet at the (upper) critical pomt. A critical quench corresponds to a sudden decrease in temperature along a constant order parameter (concentration) path passing through the critical point. Other constant order parameter paths ending within tire coexistence curve are called off-critical quenches.

For initial post-quench states in the metastable region between the classical spinodal and coexistence curves,... 

A homogeneous metastable phase is always stable with respect to the fonnation of infinitesimal droplets, provided the surface tension a is positive. Between this extreme and the other thennodynamic equilibrium state, which is inhomogeneous and consists of two coexisting phases, a critical size droplet state exists, which is in unstable equilibrium. In the classical theory, one makes the capillarity approxunation the critical droplet is assumed homogeneous up to the boundary separating it from the metastable background and is assumed to be the same as the new phase in the bulk. Then the work of fonnation W R) of such a droplet of arbitrary radius R is the sum of the... 

Within this general framework there have been many different systems modelled and the dynamical, statistical prefactors have been calculated. These are detailed in [42]. For a binary mixture, phase separating from an initially metastable state, the work of Langer and Schwartz [48] using die Langer theory [47] gives the micleation rate as... 

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