A study of nucleation in supersaturated ibuprofen vapor in a flow diffusion chamber

Abstract

Isothermal nucleation of supersaturated ibuprofen racemate vapor has been experimentally studied in a flow diffusion chamber at 293.3 and 301.2 K. Nucleation rates have been measured in the range of 104−104 cm−3 s−1 as functions of supersaturation. According to the first nucleation theorem, the numbers of molecules in critical nuclei have been found and used to determine the nucleation rate and supersaturation values as depending on the sizes of critical nuclei. The comparison of the experimental data with theoretical predictions has shown that the nucleation rates measured as functions of the numbers of molecules in critical nuclei are higher than the rates predicted by the classical theory by six to seven decimal orders of magnitude but, within one order of magnitude, coincide with the rates predicted by a theory previously proposed in a work by one of the authors, in which nucleation clusters were considered to be microscopic objects.