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Updated: Feb 15, 2026

Fabrication, Operation and Flow Visualization in Surface-acoustic-wave-driven Acoustic-counterflow Microfluidics
Published on: August 27, 2013
Modelling the effect of acoustic waves on the thermodynamics and kinetics of phase transformation in a solution:
S R Haqshenas1, I J Ford2, N Saffari1
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 7JE, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
Effects of acoustic waves on a phase transformation in a metastable phase were investigated in our previous work [S. R. Haqshenas, I. J. Ford, and N. Saffari, "Modelling the effect of acoustic waves on nucleation," J. Chem. Phys. 145, 024315 (2016)]. We developed a non-equimolar dividing surface cluster model and employed it to determine the thermodynamics and kinetics of crystallisation induced by an acoustic field in a mass-conserved system. In the present work, we developed a master equation based on a hybrid Szilard-Fokker-Planck model, which accounts for mass transportation due to acoustic waves. This model can determine the kinetics of nucleation and the early stage of growth of clusters including the Ostwald ripening phenomenon. It was solved numerically to calculate the kinetics of an isothermal sonocrystallisation process in a system with mass transportation. The simulation results show that the effect of mass transportation for different excitations depends on the waveform as well as the imposed boundary conditions and tends to be noticeable in the case of shock waves. The derivations are generic and can be used with any acoustic source and waveform.
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