2006-(I)-Critical Behavior and Crossover Effects in the Properties of Binary and Ternary Mixtures and Verification of the Dynamic Scaling Conception

 

Nature comprises a multitude of critical phenomena. Spontaneous symmetry breaking at the origin of the universe and gravitation collapse are spectacular examples. Critical phenomena occur at phase transitions. Theories of phase transitions use methods of catastrophe theory and also of theory of percolation which currently attract considerable attention. In order to understand critical phenomena,  investigations of liquid-liquid phase transitions in binary and ternary mixtures are very instructive. Especially the understanding of the phase behavior and the critical phenomena in ternary mixtures, biophysics and membrane physics have attracted attention during the last years . The essential and most amazing feature of critical phenomena was the discovery of critical point universality indicating that the microscopic structure of fluids becomes unimportant in the vicinity of the critical point. The understanding of such phenomena is also of great importance for chemistry and chemical engineering in procedures like liquid and solid extraction, drying, absorption, distillation and many other chemical reaction processes, as well as for biology in operations like fermentation, biological filtration and syntheses. Moreover, theories of critical phenomena are substantial for many innovative applications such as supercritical extraction, enhanced oil recovery and supercritical pollution oxidation. The importance of the understanding and application of critical phenomena is demonstrated by the recently (08.28.07) provided studies performed in the International Space Station (ISS).

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