Liquid dynamics in partially crystalline glycerol

TL;DR

This study investigates the dielectric properties of supercooled glycerol during crystallization, revealing that the liquid dynamics remain largely unaffected by nucleation and crystal growth, with the alpha relaxation behavior unchanged.

Contribution

It provides real-time dielectric measurements showing that crystallization does not alter the alpha relaxation in glycerol and finds no evidence of new amorphous or nano-crystalline phases.

Findings

Alpha relaxation remains unchanged during crystallization.

No formation of new amorphous or nano-crystalline phases.

A tiny fraction of glycerol remains disordered after transition.

Abstract

We present a dielectric study on the dynamics of supercooled glycerol during crystallization. We explore the transformation into a solid phase in real time by monitoring the temporal evolution of the amplitude of the dielectric signal. Neither the initial nucleation or the crystal growth influence the liquid dynamics visibly. For one of the samples studied, a tiny fraction of glycerol remained in the disordered state after the end of the transition. We examined the nature of the alpha relaxation in this frustrated crystal and find that it is virtually identical to the bulk dynamics. In addition to that, we have found no evidence that supercooled glycerol transforms into a peculiar phase where either a new solid amorphous state or nano-crystals dispersed in a liquid matrix are formed.