The last in the series of 10th Anniversary articles is a paper by Alain Fuchs and colleagues. 

Alain Fuchs is professor of chemistry and director of the Paris chemical engineering graduate school (chimie ParisTech). He was educated as a chemical engineer at EPFL Lausanne and obtained his PhD in physical chemistry at Orsay University in 1983. Professor Fuchs is currently a member of the PCCP advisory board and a keen supporter of the journal. He describes PCCP as a 'true success story'. 

The article describes the behaviour of water confined within the nanopores of hydrophobic zeolites. 'There is a common belief in the adsorption thermodynamics community that conventional phase transitions cannot exist anymore in the nanometer scale confinement situation,' explained Fuchs. 'The present joint experimental and molecular simulation study demonstrates that this is not true. When the pore walls are hydrophobic, the water phase behaviour is dominated by the water-water interaction, and provided that the pores are 3D-interconnected, condensation takes place through either a genuine first-order phase transition, or (in the extreme confinement situation) through a continuous supercritical crossing from a diluted to a dense fluid phase. The most important features of the water intrusion-extrusion process in hydrophobic zeolites have been explained in terms of equilibrium thermodynamics considerations.' 

The paper was published as part of a 2008 PCCP themed issue on 'Water at interfaces', guest edited by Martin McCoustra.