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JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 106, NO. D13, PAGES 14,447–14,463, 2001

Activation barrier for multicomponent droplet formation on partially soluble nuclei

Y. S. Djikaev

Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada


D. J. Donaldson

Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada


Abstract

We present a thermodynamic treatment for obtaining the free energy surface as a function of droplet composition as well as the activation barrier for droplet formation in a multicomponent vapor mixture on a nucleating center which consists of both an insoluble core and some soluble species. An extension of Kuni's method [Kuni et al., 1993a] of studying the free energy of droplet formation to heterogeneous multicomponent condensation makes it possible to find all the main features of the free energy surface without explicitly knowing the free energy itself. Using that method, we obtain the inequalities that serve as criteria for whether heterogeneous condensation is barrierless or occurs in a fluctuational way or does not occur at all. An explicit expression for the height of the activation barrier for heterogeneous multicomponent condensation on mixed nuclei is proposed. The theoretical results are illustrated by numerical calculations for condensation on mixed nuclei in the water-methanol and water-sulfuric acid systems.

Received 24 March 2000; accepted 26 December 2000.

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Citation: Djikaev, Y. S., and D. J. Donaldson (2001), Activation barrier for multicomponent droplet formation on partially soluble nuclei, J. Geophys. Res., 106(D13), 14,447–14,463.