A correction to classical homogeneous nucleation theory for polar molecules exhibiting an electric double layer at the liquid surface

Abstract

An oriented dipole surface layer is added to the classical liquid drop model of nucleation to account for the surface behavior of substances having polar nonsymmetrical molecules. The preliminary treatment of the change in free energy as given by Abraham is modified to include Fletcher's exponential decay of the degree of orientation. An additional correction for the excess binding energy due to the presence of a foreign molecule in the prenucleation cluster is included to account for the inflections observed in the experimental results of Allen and Kassner. The resulting free energy of formation is combined with the kinetic treatment of Frenkel to obtain a nucleation rate law. The theoretical results are compared to the experimental results of Allen and Kassner as a function of both supersaturation and temperature. The agreement is good once the heterogeneous component is taken into account. © 1972.