Nucleation: What Happens at the Initial Stage?

Abstract

Crystallizing growth: The initial structure of crystal nuclei is supersaturation-dependent. At low degrees of supersaturation, liquid-like nuclei are formed initially, which undergo a continuous structure transition from liquid-like to crystal-like as the size N increases. This gradual structure evolution substantially lowers the nucleation barrier DeltaG* and facilitates the nucleation relative to the formation of crystal-like clusters from the beginning.

A novel membrane distillation response technology for nucleation detection, metastable zone width measurement and analysis

“…The microporous membranes were presented both as a mass-transfer apparatus to concentrate solutions by removing solvent in the vapor phase and as active surfaces to promote heterogeneous nucleation (Curcio et al, 2006). This active surface could modify the competition between the reduced bulk free energy and the increased surface free energy (Zhang and Liu, 2009). Additionally, the sharp decline of the transmembrane flux caused by the initial nucleation on the membrane interface was reported in many literature studies (Meng et al, 2015a(Meng et al, , 2014Park et al, 2013).…”

Nucleation and particle growth with fluctuating rates at the intermediate stage of phase transitions in metastable systems

“…Here, τ 1 is the time for attaining the steady nucleation rate, τ 2 is the time during which the growing crystals virtually desupercool (desupersaturate) the melt (solution) and τ 3 is the time of entire phase transition. The initial and final stages of the process respectively connected with characteristic times τ 1 and τ 3 have been studied theoretically in detail (see, among others, [6][7][8][9]), but the intermediate behaviour (characteristic process time τ 2 ) is much less understood. This is connected with unsurmountable mathematical difficulties of solving the nonlinear integro-differential equations for the intermediate stage of bulk phase transitions.…”

Nucleation is Second Order: An Apparent Kinetically Effective Nucleus of Two for Ir(0)nNanoparticle Formation from [(1,5-COD)IrI·P2W15Nb3O62]8–Plus Hydrogen

“…The k 1obs rate constant obtained by the traditional unimolecular A → B nucleation, two-step FW mechanism over a 30-fold variation in the concentrations of the initial complex, (Bu 4 N)5 Na 3 (1,5-COD)Ir·P 2 W 15 Nb 3 O 62 . The data show a clear linear trend with a linear least-squares regression line with a slope of 12.2(±0.8) h −1 M −1 (R 2 = 0.94; y-intercept = 1.3(±3.8) × 10 −3 h −1 , from which k 1obs(bimol) = 6.1(±0.4) h −1 M −1can be readily calculated using the slope and eq 4.…”