Pressure‐jump Experiments for the Study of the Kinetics of Phase Separation in the Binary System Ethene/Hexane. I. Transient Light Scattering Measurements

Measurements were performed with ethene/hexane mixtures at pressures up to 8 MPa and at temperatures from 293 to 323 K in order to study the process of demixing of a gas/liquid system. Supersaturation was achieved by a pressure jump technique that makes possible differential pressure jumps from 0.05 up to 1 MPa into metastable regions of the miscibility gap in less than 5 ms. ‐ The appearance of the new phase within the liquid mixture was observed by means of light scattering. Transient light scattering measurements at an angle of 90° were carried out in order to determine the kinetic limit of bubble growth following homogeneous nucleation along the phase boundary of the binary liquid with respect to a p(x) isotherm as well as to a T(x) isobar. It will be shown that the primary limitation of our light scattering measurements is the appearance of multiple scattering.