Phase separation of acetonitrile-water mixtures and minimizing of ice crystallites from there in confinement of MCM-41.

The effect of confinement of an acetonitrile-water mixture, whose correlation length was comparable to the pore size of the mesopores of MCM-41 (d=2.4-3.6 nm), on the phase changes was studied.

Enthalpy and interfacial free energy changes of water capillary condensed in mesoporous silica, MCM-41 and SBA-15.

The effect of confinement on the solid-liquid phase transitions of water was studied by using DSC and FT-IR measurements. Enthalpy changes upon melting of frozen water in MCM-41 and SBA-15 were determined as a function of pore size and found to decrease with decreasing pore size. The melting point also decreased almost monotonically with a decrease in pore size.