Growth and motion of heterogeneous water droplets in laminar diffusion chambers: 2. High nanoparticle concentrations

Abstract

The heterogeneous condensation of water vapor on nanoparticles and the growth of formed droplets are numerically studied under conditions of laminar diffusion chamber (LDC) of a new type with a hot porous wall. The main attention is focused on the growth of heterogeneous droplets in the gas flow at high number densities of nanoparticles exceeding 108 droplet/m3. Under these conditions, there is an interrelation between the growth of droplets and processes of heat and mass transfer in LDC due to vapor depletion and the release of latent heat of phase transition on growing droplets. The efficiency of the coverage of nanoparticles with water film is studied under LDC nonuniform conditions. It is shown that, at initial number densities of nanoparticles (Nd > 1011 droplet/m3), heterogeneous droplets do not grow to optically detected sizes.