Nucleation in agitated solutions

Abstract

MECHANICAL disturbances are known to speed the onset of nucleation in supersaturated solutions. Early workers1 demonstrated that severe mechanical shock could induce nucleation in metastable solutions at temperatures well above the so-called 'metastable limit', and more recent work2 has shown that mechanical stirring can cause rapid nucleation in unseeded solutions which will not normally form nuclei under quiescent conditions. Published work to date has not given any indication of the effect of varying the intensity of agitation on the tendency of an unseeded solution to form nuclei under any given set of conditions, but it is generally assumed that more vigorous agitation increases this tendency. © 1961 Nature Publishing Group.