Binary Solid-Liquid Phase Diagrams of Selected Organic Compounds. A Complete Listing of 15 Binary Phase Diagrams

The investigation of multicomponent solid-liquid equilibria is of considerable importance in chemistry and materials science. Thus the determination of phase diagrams is a standard experiment in most undergraduate physical chemistry laboratory courses. This article proposes a simple and low-cost apparatus that allows accurate and reproducible measurements in a broad temperature range. Fifteen solid-liquid phase diagrams of binary systems that result from the systematic combination of six aromatic hydrocarbons are summarized. The aromatic hydrocarbons selected are easily accessible and melt in a convenient temperature range. The phase diagrams can be described within the experimental accuracy by the theoretical behavior of ideal systems with no solid solubility. This material is particularly well suited for a laboratory course, to illustrate the concepts of inhomogeneous equilibria with a large number of systems.