Article
Article
High-pressure chemistry
Article By:
Wentorf, Robert H., Jr. General Electric Research Laboratory, Schenectady, New York.
Last reviewed:January 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.318100
Chemistry at very high pressures, arbitrarily chosen to be above 10,000 bars (109 pascals), and mainly concerned with solid and liquid states. A bar is 106 dynes/cm2, or 1.0197 kg/cm2, or 0.9869 atm, or 105 Pa. Multiples of the bar are the kilobar (1 kilobar = 103 bars = 108 Pa) and the megabar (1 mega-bar = 106 bars = 1011 Pa). At 25°C (77°F) and 10 kilobars (109 Pa), nearly all ordinary gases are liquid or solid, and only a few liquids are not frozen; thus most high-pressure chemistry involves either higher temperatures, at which chemical reactions can occur at appreciable rates, or studies of internal arrangements in solids.
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