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Phase transitions commonly refer to when a substance transforms between one of the four states of matter to another. At the phase transition point for a substance, for instance the boiling point, the two phases involved - liquid and vapor, have identical free energies and therefore are equally likely to exist.
In chemistry, the lever rule is a formula used to determine the mole fraction (x i) or the mass fraction (w i) of each phase of a binary equilibrium phase diagram.It can be used to determine the fraction of liquid and solid phases for a given binary composition and temperature that is between the liquidus and solidus line.
This violation is not a defect, rather it is the origin of the observed discontinuity in properties that distinguish liquid from vapor, and defines a first order phase transition. Figure 1: The curve is an isotherm, constant, in the --plane of a fluid that includes a phase change. The various segments of the curve are described in the text.
However, only solid→liquid and liquid→solid phase changes are practical for PCMs. Although liquid–gas transitions have a higher heat of transformation than solid–liquid transitions, liquid→gas phase changes are impractical for thermal storage because large volumes or high pressures are required to store the materials in their gas phase.
Values of ΔH are usually given for the transition at the normal standard state temperature for the two states, and if so, are designated with a superscript °. ΔH for a phase transition is a weak function of temperature. In some texts, the heats of phase transitions are called latent heats (for example, latent heat of fusion).
The solid–liquid phase boundary can only end in a critical point if the solid and liquid phases have the same symmetry group. [5] For most substances, the solid–liquid phase boundary (or fusion curve) in the phase diagram has a positive slope so that the melting point increases with pressure.
The solidus is the locus of temperatures (a curve on a phase diagram) below which a given substance is completely solid (crystallized). The solidus temperature specifies the temperature below which a material is completely solid, [2] and the minimum temperature at which a melt can co-exist with crystals in thermodynamic equilibrium.
A phase transition indicates a change in structure and can be recognized by an abrupt change in properties. A distinct state of matter can be defined as any set of states distinguished from any other set of states by a phase transition. Water can be said to have several distinct solid states. [7] The appearance of superconductivity is ...