Volumes of critical bubbles from the nucleation theorem

摘要

A corollary of the nucleation theorem due to Kashchiev [Nucleation: Basic Theory with Applications (Butterworth-Heinemann,Oxford,2000)] allows the volume V* of a critical bubble to be determined from nucleation rate measurements.The original derivation was limited to one-component,ideal gas bubbles with a vapor density much smaller than that of the ambient liquid.Here,an exact result is found for multicomponent,nonideal gas bubbles.Provided a weak density inequality holds,this result reduces to Kashchiev's simple form which thus has a much broader range of applicability than originally expected.Limited applications to droplets are also mentioned,and the utility of the p_(T,x) form of the nucleation theorem as a sum rule is noted.