Supercritical CO₂, Density, and the Loss of Phase Boundaries

Supercritical CO₂, Density, and the Loss of Phase Boundaries

An AMS-based reinterpretation of Steve Mould’s experiment

Steve Mould’s recent video on supercritical carbon dioxide is one of the clearest experimental demonstrations I’ve seen of something subtle but profound:
supercriticality is not really about phases — it’s about density stability.

What follows is not a critique of the video (which is excellent), but a reinterpretation of what we are seeing through an alternative physical ontology: the Aetheric Magnetic Substrate (AMS) model. The goal is not to replace standard thermodynamics, but to explain why the behaviour looks the way it does.

What the experiment shows (brief recap)

As CO₂ is heated under pressure:

  • A liquid and gas coexist, separated by a clear meniscus
  • Near the critical point, that boundary becomes cloudy
  • Then the meniscus vanishes entirely
  • Yet density gradients remain visible via refractive bending
  • The system behaves neither like a normal liquid nor a normal gas

Crucially: after the meniscus disappears, the fluid is not instantly homogeneous.

That detail matters.

The usual explanation — and its limit

The standard account appeals to Helmholtz free energy:

  • Attractive molecular forces favour close packing
  • Entropy favours spreading out
  • Together they produce two free-energy minima:
    • a dense (liquid) state
    • a diffuse (gas) state

At the critical point, those minima merge.

This description is correct — but incomplete.
It describes what happens, not why the system ever supported two densities at all.

AMS reframing: density as substrate coupling

In the AMS model:

  • Matter consists of stable vortical structures (“vortons”)
  • These exist within a continuous magnetic-like substrate
  • Density is not primary — it emerges from local vorton coupling strength

Put simply:

  • High coupling → liquid-like behaviour
  • Low coupling → gas-like behaviour
  • Phase boundaries exist only if the substrate can support distinct coupling equilibria

Why liquids and gases coexist at equilibrium

Under ordinary conditions, the AMS substrate supports two stable torsional equilibria:

  1. A tightly coupled regime (liquid)
  2. A weakly coupled regime (gas)

In a sealed container, the system does not “average out” because:

  • Intermediate coupling states are energetically disfavoured
  • The substrate prefers to segregate into its allowed equilibria
  • The meniscus is a genuine torsional discontinuity, not just a visual artefact

This is why CO₂ does not simply spread to uniform density.

What heating really does near the critical point

As temperature and pressure rise together:

  • Vorton mobility increases
  • Entropic effects steepen
  • The energetic penalty for intermediate coupling weakens

At the critical point, the AMS substrate loses the ability to support multiple stable coupling regimes.

This is the key transition:

Not “liquid becomes gas”,
but “the substrate can no longer enforce a density jump.”

Why the meniscus goes cloudy

Just beyond the critical point:

  • Tiny temperature changes cause large density fluctuations
  • Local coupling strength varies rapidly in space and time
  • Refractive index (which depends on density) fluctuates wildly

Light scatters.

The cloudiness is not a phase boundary — it is critical density instability made visible.

Why density gradients persist after the boundary vanishes

Once supercritical:

  • There is only one equilibrium regime
  • But it has very low restoring stiffness
  • Gravity and thermal gradients can still bias density locally

So the fluid can be:

  • continuous
  • supercritical
  • yet visibly stratified

This explains why moving the camera up and down still shows refractive bending even after the meniscus is gone.

Why this looks nothing like steam bubbling in water

Water near boiling is far from its critical point.

Its substrate:

  • strongly enforces two coupling regimes
  • maintains sharp interfaces
  • supports stable bubbles

Supercritical CO₂ is in an entirely different mechanical regime.

Why supercritical CO₂ is such a good solvent

In AMS terms, it occupies a “sweet spot”:

  • High mobility → penetrates like a gas
  • Moderate coupling → dissolves like a liquid
  • No surface tension → no entry barriers
  • Continuously tunable density → selective extraction

This is why it extracts caffeine efficiently — and why it also strips flavour compounds from roasted beans.

One clean takeaway

Supercritical fluid is not a new phase.
It is what matter looks like when the substrate no longer supports phase separation.

Or more bluntly:

Liquids and gases are privileged solutions.
Supercriticality is what happens when that privilege disappears.

Closing note

Nothing in this reinterpretation contradicts the experimental results or thermodynamic formalism shown in the video. It simply reframes them in terms of substrate mechanics rather than particle statistics.

If this perspective is useful, it’s because it explains why the system behaves the way it does — not just how to plot it on a diagram.

​

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