Phase equilibria critical temperature

Large errors in the low-pressure points often have little effect on phase-equilibrium calculations e.g., when the pressure is a few millitorr, it usually does not matter if we are off by 100 or even 1000%. By contrast, the high-pressure end should be reliable large errors should be avoided when the data are extrapolated beyond the critical temperature. 

As also noted in the preceding chapter, it is customary to divide adsorption into two broad classes, namely, physical adsorption and chemisorption. Physical adsorption equilibrium is very rapid in attainment (except when limited by mass transport rates in the gas phase or within a porous adsorbent) and is reversible, the adsorbate being removable without change by lowering the pressure (there may be hysteresis in the case of a porous solid). It is supposed that this type of adsorption occurs as a result of the same type of relatively nonspecific intermolecular forces that are responsible for the condensation of a vapor to a liquid, and in physical adsorption the heat of adsorption should be in the range of heats of condensation. Physical adsorption is usually important only for gases below their critical temperature, that is, for vapors. 

Critical Temperature The critical temperature of a compound is the temperature above which a hquid phase cannot be formed, no matter what the pressure on the system. The critical temperature is important in determining the phase boundaries of any compound and is a required input parameter for most phase equilibrium thermal property or volumetric property calculations using analytic equations of state or the theorem of corresponding states. Critical temperatures are predicted by various empirical methods according to the type of compound or mixture being considered. 

Vapor pressure is the most important of the basic thermodynamic properties affec ting liquids and vapors. The vapor pressure is the pressure exerted by a pure component at equilibrium at any temperature when both liquid and vapor phases exist and thus extends from a minimum at the triple point temperature to a maximum at the critical temperature, the critical pressure. This section briefly reviews methods for both correlating vapor pressure data and for predicting vapor pressure of pure compounds. Except at very high total pressures (above about 10 MPa), there is no effect of total pressure on vapor pressure. If such an effect is present, a correction, the Poynting correction, can be applied. The pressure exerted above a solid-vapor mixture may also be called vapor pressure but is normallv only available as experimental data for common compounds that sublime. 

Because of the financial importance of this process to steel producers (about one-third of all the steel produced in the world is subsequently galvanised) a great deal of research has been carried out throughout the world to establish the true equilibrium phase boundaries in the Fe,, -Zn( system and the critical temperature of stability of the f phase. Since the AG -7 diagrams or the phase stability diagrams could not account for these discrepancies in this system, AG ,-concentration curves were used for... 

Curve AB is a portion of the vapor pressure-temperature curve of liquid water. At any temperature and pressure along this line, liquid water is in equilibrium with water vapor. At point A on the curve, these two phases are in equilibrium at 0°C and about 5 mm Hg (more exactly, 0.01°C and 4.56 mm Hg). At B, corresponding to 100°C, the pressure exerted by the vapor in equilibrium with liquid water is 1 atm this is the normal boiling point of water. The extension of line AB beyond point B gives the equilibrium vapor pressure of the liquid above the normal boiling point. The line ends at 374°C, the critical temperature of water, where the pressure is 218 atm. 

In most cases the critical temperature of the solute is above room temperature. As can be seen in the binary system H2S-H20 drawn in Fig. 6, the three-phase line HL2G is then intersected by the three-phase line HL G. The point of intersection represents the four-phase equilibrium HLXL2G and indicates the temperature... 

An application of Eq. (19) is shown in Fig. 4, which gives the solubility of solid naphthalene in compressed ethylene at three temperatures slightly above the critical temperature of ethylene. The curves were calculated from the equilibrium relation given in Eq. (12). Also shown are the experimental solubility data of Diepen and Scheffer (D4, D5) and calculated results based on the ideal-gas assumption (ordinate scale is logarithmic and it is evident that very large errors are incurred when corrections for gas-phase nonideality are neglected. 

Using the estimated interaction parameters phase equilibrium computations were performed. It was found that the EoS is able to represent the VL2E behavior of the methane-n-hexane system in the temperature range of 198.05 to 444.25 K reasonably well. Typical results together with the experimental data at 273.16 and 444.25 K are shown in Figures 14.14 and 14.15 respectively. However, the EoS was found to be unable to correlate the entire phase behavior in the temperature range of 195.91 K (Upper Critical Solution Temperature) and 182.46K (Lower Critical Solution Temperature). 

The phase equilibrium for pure components is illustrated in Figure 4.1. At low temperatures, the component forms a solid phase. At high temperatures and low pressures, the component forms a vapor phase. At high pressures and high temperatures, the component forms a liquid phase. The phase equilibrium boundaries between each of the phases are illustrated in Figure 4.1. The point where the three phase equilibrium boundaries meet is the triple point, where solid, liquid and vapor coexist. The phase equilibrium boundary between liquid and vapor terminates at the critical point. Above the critical temperature, no liquid forms, no matter how high the pressure. The phase equilibrium boundary between liquid and vapor connects the triple point and the... 

Fig. 17 B/E-p dependence of the critical temperatures of liquid-liquid demixing (dashed line) and the equilibrium melting temperatures of polymer crystals (solid line) for 512-mers at the critical concentrations, predicted by the mean-field lattice theory of polymer solutions. The triangles denote Tcol and the circles denote T cry both are obtained from the onset of phase transitions in the simulations of the dynamic cooling processes of a single 512-mer. The segments are drawn as a guide for the eye (Hu and Frenkel, unpublished results)...

Figure 3. Phase diagrams for different form-factor models Gaussian (solid lines), Lorentzian a = 2 (dashed lines) and NJL (dash-dotted). In /3-equilibrium, the colorsuperconducting phase does not exist for Co Gi. In the inset we show for the Gaussian model the comparison of the numerical result with the modified BCS formula Tf = 0.57 A(T = 0, fiq) g(Hq) for the critical temperature of the superconducting phase transition.

We have investigated the influence of diquark condensation on the thermodynamics of quark matter under the conditions of /5-equilibrium and charge neutrality relevant for the discussion of compact stars. The EoS has been derived for a nonlocal chiral quark model in the mean field approximation, and the influence of different form-factors of the nonlocal, separable interaction (Gaussian, Lorentzian, NJL) has been studied. The model parameters are chosen such that the same set of hadronic vacuum observable is described. We have shown that the critical temperatures and chemical potentials for the onset of the chiral and the superconducting phase transition are the lower the smoother the momentum dependence of the interaction form-factor is. 

Supercritical fluids represent a different type of alternative solvent to the others discussed in this book since they are not in the liquid state. A SCF is defined as a substance above its critical temperature (Tc) and pressure (Pc)1, but below the pressure required for condensation to a solid, see Figure 6.1 [1], The last requirement is often omitted since the pressure needed for condensation to occur is usually unpractically high. The critical point represents the highest temperature and pressure at which the substance can exist as a vapour and liquid in equilibrium. Hence, in a closed system, as the boiling point curve is ascended, increasing both temperature and pressure, the liquid becomes less dense due to thermal expansion and the gas becomes denser as the pressure rises. The densities of both phases thus converge until they become identical at the critical point. At this point, the two phases become indistinguishable and a SCF is obtained. 

The equation-of-state method, on the other hand, uses typically three parameters p, T andft/for each pure component and one binary interactioncparameter k,, which can often be taken as constant over a relatively wide temperature range. It represents the pure-component vapour pressure curve over a wider temperature range, includes the critical data p and T, and besides predicting the phase equilibrium also describes volume, enthalpy and entropy, thus enabling the heat of mixing, Joule-Thompson effect, adiabatic compressibility in the two-phase region etc. to be calculated. 

The pressure-temperature-composition diagram presented by Morey is shown in Fig. 8. The vapor pressure of pure water (on the P-T projection) terminates at the critical point (647 K, 220 bar). The continuous curve represents saturated solutions of NaCl in water, i.e., there is a three-phase equilibrium of gas-solution-solid NaCl. The gas-phase pressure maximizes over 400 bar at around 950 K. Olander and Liander s data for a 25 wt. % NaCl solution are shown, and T-X and P X projections given. At the pressure maximum, the solution phase contains almost 80% NaCl. 

Figure 5.5. Isotherms for CO2 taken from the work of Andrews [3]. The shaded area indicates the region of stability of a one-phase liquid system. Liquid and vapor exist together at equilibrium under the dashed curve. Above the critical isotherm, 31.1°C, no distinction exists between liquid and gas. Andrews suggested that the term vapor be used only to represent the region to the right of the dashed curve below the critical temperature. The dashed curve ABCD represents the van der Waals equation. (By permission, from J. R. Partington, An Advanced Treatise on Physical Chemistry, Vol. 1, Longman Group, Ltd., London, 1949,...

---