Answer to Question #125486 in General Chemistry for Ayesha

Question

Q5: how thermodynamic parameters of material vary when we go from bulk to nano.

Answer 1

The main and the most important point about thermodynamics of the nano scale materials is their surface energy. The point is that the ratio between matter on the surface and matter in the bulk for the nano scale is totally different than that of the macro scale i.e. most of matter could be on the surface. This dramatically increases chemical activity of a nano particle and decreases its thermodynamic stability. For instance, a spherical particle within 0.5 nm of its surface will have the same volume as a rest bulk material under 1-2 nm of its size. See chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cphc.201100129;

Finally, the crystallization temperature as for the nano scale matter has practically no sense as well as quantum effects become more and more significant.