Probing the Cybotactic Region in Gas-Expanded Liquids (GXLs)

Gas-expanded liquids (GXLs) are a new and benign class of liquid solvents, which may offer many advantages for separations, reactions, and advanced materials. GXLs are intermediate in properties between normal liquids and supercritical fluids, both in solvating power and in transport properties. Other advantages include benign nature, low operating pressures, and highly tunable properties by simple pressure variations. The chemical community has only just begun to exploit the advantages of these GXLs for industrial applications. This Account focuses on the synergism of experimental techniques with theoretical modeling resulting in a powerful combination for exploring chemical structure and transport in the cybotactic region of GXLs (at the nanometer lengthscale).