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Concept
Melting point
Summary
The melting point (or, rarely, liquefaction point) of a substance is the temperature at which it changes state from solid to liquid. At the melting point the solid and liquid phase exist in equilibrium. The melting point of a substance depends on pressure and is usually specified at a standard pressure such as 1 atmosphere or 100 kPa.
When considered as the temperature of the reverse change from liquid to solid, it is referred to as the freezing point or crystallization point. Because of the ability of substances to supercool, the freezing point can easily appear to be below its actual value. When the "characteristic freezing point" of a substance is determined, in fact, the actual methodology is almost always "the principle of observing the disappearance rather than the formation of ice, that is, the melting point."
For most substances, melting and freezing points are approximately equal. For example, the melting and freezing points of mercury is . However, certain substances possess differing solid-liquid transition temperatures. For example, agar melts at and solidifies from ; such direction dependence is known as hysteresis. The melting point of ice at 1 atmosphere of pressure is very close to ; this is also known as the ice point. In the presence of nucleating substances, the freezing point of water is not always the same as the melting point. In the absence of nucleators water can exist as a supercooled liquid down to before freezing.
The metal with the highest melting point is tungsten, at ; this property makes tungsten excellent for use as electrical filaments in incandescent lamps. The often-cited carbon does not melt at ambient pressure but sublimes at about ; a liquid phase only exists above pressures of and estimated (see ). Hafnium carbonitride (HfCN) is a refractory compound with the highest known melting point of any substance to date and the only one confirmed to have a melting point above at ambient pressure. Quantum mechanical computer simulations predicted that this alloy (HfN0.38C0.
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