Tuning nucleation kinetics via nonequilibrium chemical reactions

Abstract

Unlike fluids at thermal equilibrium, biomolecular mixtures in living systems can sustain nonequilibrium steady states, in which active processes modify the conformational states of the constituent molecules. Despite qualitative similarities between liquid--liquid phase separation in these systems, the extent to which the phase-separation kinetics differ remains unclear. Here we show that inhomogeneous chemical reactions can alter the nucleation kinetics of liquid--liquid phase separation in a manner that is consistent with classical nucleation theory, but can only be rationalized by introducing a nonequilibrium interfacial tension. We identify conditions under which nucleation can be accelerated without changing the energetics or supersaturation, thus breaking the correlation between fast nucleation and strong driving forces that is typical of phase separation and self-assembly at thermal equilibrium.

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Active phase separation: new phenomenology from non-equilibrium physics
• Theory and simulation of multiphase coexistence in biomolecular mixtures
• Nucleation of chemically active droplets
• Assembly of Complex Colloidal Systems Using DNA
• Reaction-driven Diffusiophoresis of Liquid Condensates: Mechanisms for Intra-cellular Organization
• Emergence of multiphase condensates from a limited set of chemical building blocks
• Nonequilibrium interfacial properties of chemically driven fluids
• Evaluation of transition rates from nonequilibrium instantons