Modern studies of nucleation: Experiment and semiempirical approaches

Abstract

Currently, the main problem of the development of nucleation theory is related to internal inconsistency of experimental data obtained by different methods. The main reason for this is out-of-date assumptions used in the organization of experiments and empirical data processing. In particular, gas should be considered as a rightful nucleating component in a vapor-gas system. The semiempirical construction of nucleation rate surfaces offers promise for the estimation of the rates of nucleus formation and can be used in practice. The two-surface topology of the rates of nucleation in the vicinity of the triple point has well been determined by empirical and semiempirical methods. In this work, we formulate some general requirements on experiments with nucleus formation in vapor. The topical current problem is measurements of nucleation rates in a single channel for multichannel (two- or more-channel) nucleation. Measurements of actually single-channel nucleation play a key role in a comparison of empirical data and modern (single-channel) nucleation theory.