Electric permittivity anomaly close to the critical consolute point of a nitrobenzene + octane liquid mixture

High-pressure behavior of dielectric constant in a binary critical mixture

An alternative design of the measurement capacitor for high-pressure studies of complex liquids or soft matter systems is presented. Subsequently, results for the precritical anomaly of dielectric constant in 1-nitropropane-octane critical mixture are reported. First, the pressure dependence of the critical consolute temperature T_{C} up to P=0.55GPa was determined and portrayed using the derivative-based analysis. Second, temperature and pressure evolutions of dielectric constant on approaching the critical consolute point at (T_{C}=304.1K and P_{C}=403MPa) were studied. They revealed that the pretransitional anomaly ɛ(P→P_{C}) is notably more pronounced than for ɛ(T→T_{C}). For both paths, the static domain extends even to as low frequency as f=100Hz, whereas for tests under atmospheric pressure, they require at least f=100kHz. The discussion of the impact of correction-to-scaling terms, including the unique case of the pressure paths, is also presented.

The super- and sub-critical effects for dielectric constant in diethyl ether

Results of dielectric constant (ε) studies in diethyl ether for the surrounding of the gas - liquid critical point, TC - 130 K < T < TC + 50 K, are presented. The analysis recalls the physics of critical phenomena for portraying ε (T) evolution along branches of the coexistence curve, along its diameter (d(T)) and in the supercritical domain for T > TC. For the ultrasound sonicated system, the split into coexisting phases disappeared and dielectric constant approximately followed the pattern of the diameter. This may indicate the possibility of the extension of the "supercritical technology" into the ultrasound "homogenized" subcritical domain: the "strength" and the range of the precritical effect of d(T) are ca. 10× larger than for ε (T > TC).

Liquid-vapor interface of the Stockmayer fluid in a uniform external field

The effect of a uniform (nonspatially varying) external field on the liquid-vapor interface of the Stockmayer fluid (Lennard-Jones particles embedded with a point dipole) has been investigated by molecular-dynamics simulations. The long-ranged parts of both the dipole and Lennard-Jones interactions are treated using an Ewald summation, which removes the effects of the cutoff. The direction of the field shifts the critical point and interfacial properties in different directions. For an external field parallel to the interface, the critical temperature increases, while for a field applied perpendicular to the interface, it decreases. The effects of the field on surface tension and interfacial width are also investigated. For zero field, dipoles near the liquid-vapor interface show a weak orientation parallel to the interface. For fields parallel to the interface, ordering in the liquid phase is greater than the vapor, while for fields perpendicular to the interface, the opposite is true.

Shift of the critical mixing temperature in strong electric fields. Theory and experiment

We study the shift in the critical temperature T(c) in binary mixtures in strong electric fields. In experiments we measure the nonlinear dielectric effect (NDE) in a mixture of nitrobenze and n-octane and calculate Piekara's factor. We find that the critical anomaly of Piekara's factor is a function of an electric field strength. We propose to explain this observation as a result of a downward shift of T(c), and this allows us to calculate (∂T(c)/∂E(2)) = (-22 ± 10) × 10(-16) (K m(2))/V(2). In the theoretical part we amend Landau and Lifshitz's formula and show that the downward shift of Tc can be estimated from a simple mean-field theory taking into account the linear and quadratic terms in an expansion of the constitutive relation ε(x) between the electric constant ε and mixture composition x.