Abstract
The fundamental phase diagram of a pure substance exhibiting gas, liquid and solid phases is reasonably well understood. The pioneering work of Dutch physicist Johannes van der Waals in the late 1800s showed that the behaviour of simple fluids can be understood in terms of the balance of spherical repulsive and attractive forces.
The challenge however arises when trying to describe and predict the properties of more complex molecular systems and their mixtures. Modern equations of state which are based on detailed molecular models and the fundamental laws of thermodynamics have greatly enhanced the capability of analytical methods and provide a tool that can be used to study complex systems.
Amparo will discuss some of our contributions in this area, touching on unusual phase behaviour in liquid crystal systems, the challenges and progress in treating and understanding aqueous solutions and the recasting of the free energy expression as a group contribution method.
Biography
Amparo Galindo is Professor of Physical Chemistry in Imperial’s Department of Chemical Engineering. She studied Chemistry in Madrid, graduating in 1993, and later moved to the UK where she obtained her PhD from the University of Sheffield. She received an Advanced EPRSC Fellowship in 2000 and joined Imperial as a Lecturer in 2002.
Amparo is interested in the development of fundamental approaches to studying complex phase behaviour, contributing to the understanding of experimental systems with a special focus on chemical processes.
She is the Chair of the Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics group of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the UK representative of the Thermodynamics Group of the European Federation of Chemical Engineers, an associate editor of the Journal of Chemical Engineering Data and also serves on the editorial board of Molecular Physics.