Nucleation and growth by diffusion under Ostwald-Freundlich boundary condition

Abstract

The critical radius of a nucleus grown by diffusion in a solution is studied thermodynamically as well as kinetically. The thermodynamic growth equation called Zeldovich equation of classical nucleation theory (CNT) and the kinetic diffusional growth equation combined with the Ostwald-Freundlich boundary condition lead to the same critical radius. However, it should be pointed out that the diffusional equation may lead to a kinetic critical radius that is different from the thermodynamic critical radius, thus indicating the possibility of kinetically controlling the critical radius of a nucleus.

4 pages, 1 figure, Journal of Chemical Physics to be published

References in corpus (1)

• Models of Synthesis of Uniform Colloids and Nanocrystals

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Nucleation and growth of a core-shell composite nucleus by diffusion
• Revision of the classical nucleation theory for supersaturated solutions