Phase diagram can be constructed that show the effect of more than two variables on the phase of a substance. Phase diagrams can use other variables in addition to or in place of temperature, pressure and composition, for example the strength of an applied electrical or magnetic field, and they can also involve substances that take on more than just three states of matter. One type of phase diagram plots temperature against the relative concentrations of two substances in a mixture called a "binary phase diagram", as shown at right. Such a mixture can be either a solid solution, eutectic or peritectic,
Racemic mixture Racemic mixture In chemistry, a racemic mixture, or racemate (), is one that has equal amounts of left- and right-handed enantiomers of a chiral molecule. The first known racemic mixture was racemic acid, which Louis Pasteur found to be a mixture of the two enantiomeric isomers of tartaric acid. A sample with only a single enantiomer is an "enantiomerically pure", "enantiopure" or "homochiral" compound. From racemic acid found in grapes; from Latin "racemus", meaning a bunch of grapes. A racemic mixture is denoted by the prefix (±)- or dl- (for sugars the prefix - may be used), indicating an equal