CHEMISTRY IN NEAR-CRITICAL FLUIDS

With the increasing popularity of supercritical fluids as media for physical and chemical processes, much effort has been devoted to understand the peculiar behaviour shown by near-critical fluids. Their observed macroscopic behaviour shifts with density from that typical of a liquid to that typical of a gaseous state, passing through a marginally stable region. Microscopic analysis is mainly focused in the interplay of a long-range effect (enhanced solvent susceptibility) and short-range intermolecular contributions as the fluid density varies.