Introduction
It is becoming increasingly evident that liquids and solutions are far from homogeneous and are structured on lengths scales from supramolecular to mesoscopic. Such structure ranges from hydrogen-bonded clusters in water, through pre-nucleation clusters in saturated solutions and mesoscopic structures in room-temperature ionic liquids, to macroscopic phase separation associated with liquid-liquid phase transitions. This gives rise to dynamics over a huge range of timescales ranging from femtoseconds to kiloseconds presenting a challenge to experiment and theory.Many aspects of liquid structuring such as the proposed presence of a second critical point in the supercooled phase of liquid water or the macroscopic phase separation of molecular liquids due to a liquid-liquid phase transition have proven to be controversial. However, these liquid structuring issues play a defining role in determining chemical reactivity, transport properties, crystal nucleation, and other physicochemical properties important to engineering and biology.
Aims
The Faraday discussion meeting brought experimentalists and theoreticians together to discuss these issues and their role in practical situations.Themes
- Mesoscopic structure in pure liquids
- Structure around solutes and in mixtures
- Crystal nucleation
- Liquid-liquid phase transitions
- Structure near interfaces
