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Heat Of Fusion Of Primary Alcohol Confined In Nanopores, Harrisonn Griffin

Honors Theses

Melting behavior of physically confined 1-decanol in nano porous silica was probed using a Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC). In agreement with the Gibbs-Thomson prediction, we observe that the melting temperature of the confined 1-decanol scales inversely with the physical size of the pores. Contrary to the assumption used in developing the Gibbs-Thomson equation, however, the apparent heat of fusion decreases as the pore size decreases. Previously, several models have been proposed where interfacial layers of molecules do not participate in the phase transition and thereby would not contribute to the heat of fusion. While these could reconcile the seeming contradiction, …