How high the temperature of a liquid be raised without boiling?

Abstract

How high the temperature of a liquid be raised beyond its boiling point without vaporizing (known as the limit of superheat) is an interesting subject of investigation. A new method of finding the limit of superheat of liquids is presented here. The superheated liquids are taken in the form of drops suspended in visco elastic gel. The nucleation is detected acoustically by a sensitive piezo-electric transducer, coupled to a multi channel scaler and the nucleation is observed as a funtion of time and with increase of temperature. The limit of superheat measured by the present method supersedes all other measurements and theoretical predictions in reaching closest to the critical temperature and warrants improved theoretical predictions.