Size dependences of surface tension and measurement accuracy

Abstract

The curvature dependence of the surface tension is important for the description of nucleation phenomena and fluids in microcapillaries or nanopores. The dependences are used in researching of cavitation phenomena. There are some theoretical models based on the Gibbs−Tolman−Koening−Buff (GTKB) equation. These models use so-called Tolman length, a parameter of the size dependence of surface tension. Different experiments and methods of molecular dynamics are used to estimate the curvature dependence of surface tension of water and to calculate the Tolman length for it. The Tolman length seems to have a negative value. But very often the authors do not calculate with the uncertainty of the surface tension measurement for a plane surface of separation. We will analyze the influence of the uncertainty and we will discuss the sensitivity of different formulas of the size dependence of surface tension of water to the uncertainty.