Exploring the Crystallization Tendency of Glass-Forming Liquid Indomethacin in the T–p Plane by Finding Different Iso-Invariant Points

Abstract

In this work, we examine in detail the crystallization tendency of the model glass-forming liquid indomethacin at varying thermodynamic conditions. To do that, we combine experimental results with predictions of the classical theories of nucleation and growth. We have considered changes in the crystallization rate k along iso-invariant curves located differently in the T–p phase diagram of the studied supercooled liquid. We include for the first time temperature and pressure conditions along which the thermodynamic driving force toward crystallization, commonly discussed as the difference in the chemical potential of the liquid/crystalline phases, Δμ, is expected to remain constant. Although the increase in pressure fosters crystallization (due to an increasing overlap of the nucleation and growth rates maxima), we show that when moving along certain thermodynamic paths the crystallization rate remains unchanged, or it is only slightly affected by the density increase. Therefore, by studying the kinetics ...