Viscosity of liquid sulfur at 4.5 GPa in the L and L' regions

Abstract

In this study, we measured the viscosity of liquid sulfur at 4.5 GPa in the L and L′ regions at 1000 K and 1373 K, respectively, in a 1000-ton cubic anvil press using modified falling sphere viscometry. The viscosity values in the L and L′ regions are 0.140±0.023 Pa s and 0.050±0.006 Pa s, respectively. The lower viscosity in the L′ region may be due to the effect of higher temperature alone or in addition to a hidden contribution from the L–L′ transition.

Keywords:

• viscosity
• sulfur
• liquid transition
• polymerization
• high pressure

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a grant awarded by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to RAS. We thank J. Jacobs and W. Yong for their help with experiments.

Notes

^† This paper was presented at the L^th European High Pressure Research Group (EHPRG 50) Meeting at Thessaloniki (Greece), 16–21 September 2012.