Specific mass increment and nonequilibrium crystal growth

Abstract

Unsteady nonequilibrium crystallization of ammonium chloride from an aqueous solution resulting in the formation of irregular, so-called seaweed, structures is experimentally investigated. It is shown that specific increment of mass for the coexisting structures (or parts thereof) is the same and changes with time (t) according to the power law a/t−b, where the factor a=1.87±0.09 and the factor b is determined by the system relaxation time. The normalization of the power law to the total time of structure growth allows obtaining a universal law that describes the specific mass increment with time for both seaweed and dendrite structures (including the non-coexisting ones).