High-pressure effects on the benzene pre-crystallization metastable states.

We report new results on the liquid to solid phase transition of benzene. We determine experimentally and investigate the properties of a number of parameters of the benzene metastable state under different pressures (from 0.1 up to 2200atm). It is shown that the supercooling, pressure drop, incubation period, time of abrupt transition from the metastable state to the crystalline state, and time of isothermal freezing all decrease as the external pressure increases, then they all vanish at 2200atm and 356K which may mark the end-point of metastability. Quadratic interpolation formulas for these parameters are provided. The densities and molar heat capacities of supercooled benzene under different pressures have been calculated too.