Pith. sign in

REVIEW

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 2410.08952 v1 pith:XNM2RDUN submitted 2024-10-11 cond-mat.soft cond-mat.stat-mech

Supercritical density fluctuations and structural heterogeneity in supercooled water-glycerol microdroplets

classification cond-mat.soft cond-mat.stat-mech
keywords supercooledwaterllptpropertiesaqueouscoolingdensitydown
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
0 comments
read the original abstract

Recent experiments and theoretical studies strongly indicate that water exhibits a liquid-liquid phase transition (LLPT) in the supercooled domain. An open question is how the LLPT of water can affect the properties of aqueous solutions. Here, we study the structural and thermodynamic properties of supercooled glycerol-water microdroplets at dilute conditions ($\chi_g=3.2~\%$ glycerol mole fraction). The combination of rapid evaporative cooling with ultrafast X-ray scattering allows us to outrun crystallization and gain access to the deeply supercooled regime down to $T=229.3$ K. We find that the density fluctuations of the glycerol-water solution or, equivalently, its isothermal compressibility, $\kappa_T$, increases upon cooling. This is confirmed by molecular dynamics simulations, which indicate that the presence of glycerol shifts the temperature of maximum $\kappa_T$ from $T=230$ K in pure water down to $T=223$ K in the solution. Our findings elucidate the interplay between the complex behavior of water, including its LLPT, and the properties of aqueous solutions at low temperatures, which can have practical consequences in cryogenic biological applications and cryopreservation techniques.

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.