Thermodynamics of nanoscale materials

Nanoscale materials have been considered for and been in use in a variety of industrial engineering applications. The surface tension of silver and copper were calculated at various temperatures using non-ideal or real solution characteristics. The surface concentration of individual components was also calculated. The surface concentration of silver in a binary silver copper system is higher in spite of its lower surface tension as a pure component. It is also shown that the melting temperature of individual elements decrease with decrease in particle size. This trend is true for most metallic elements and is pronounced below a particle size of 20 nm.