Superheated systems phase transitions

The phase changes of semicrystalline macromolecules that are usually not in equilibrium must make use of irreversible thermodynamics (11,97). On the other hand, even a system that is initially in equilibrium may go through a nonequilibrium transition because of kinetic restrictions, such as the superheating of crystals (98) or the more widely recognized supercooling of polymer melts on crystallization (10). The latter cases are often treated by kinetic arguments by introducing nucleation barriers (10,88,89,99). 

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