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Nucleation rates of water and heavy water using equations of state
Abdalla Obeidat1, Jin-Song Li, Gerald Wilemski
1Department of Physics and Cloud Aerosol Sciences Laboratory, University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla, Missouri 65409-0640, USA.
Abstract:
The original formula of Gibbs for the reversible work of critical nucleus formation is evaluated in three approximate ways for ordinary and heavy water. The least approximate way employs an equation of state to evaluate the pressure difference between the new and old phases. This form of the theory yields a temperature dependence for the nucleation rate close to that observed experimentally. This is a substantial improvement over the most commonly used (and most approximate) form of classical theory.
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