An apparent critical point in binary mixtures: Experimental and simulation study

Abstract

We report the experimental and simulation studies for the system of nitrobenzene-cyclododecane, showing an apparent critical point, which lies in their metastable, experimentally inaccessible state, below their melting point, affecting physical and chemical properties of this system in the stable liquid phase. The nonlinear dielectric effect (NDE) was measured in the mixture of nitrobenzene with cyclododecane. The mixture has been found to show an apparent critical point which lies below the melting point, manifested as anomalous NDE behavior in the vicinity of the critical concentrations in the stable liquid phase. The melting temperature of this system was estimated using the differential scanning calorimetry method. For such a system, we also performed Monte Carlo (MC) simulations that aimed to analyze the kinds of phase transitions observed and the conditions of their occurrence in Lennard-Jones mixture. The enthalpy, configurational energy, and radial distribution function have been estimated by the MC simulation method in the N-P-T system. Immiscibility conditions according to the approach by Schoen and Hoheisel [Mol. Phys. 57, 65 (1986)] are also discussed.