Nucleation in salt solutions

Abstract

The nucleation of a number of sparingly soluble electrolytes has been studied by a precipitation method and interfacial free energies have been estimated using vapour nucleation theory. The results have been correlated with those obtained by other workers for aqueous solutions by precipitation or by the super-cooling technique. It is shown that the specific interfacial free energy of the separating phase (calculated from the observed rate of nucleation) is a nearly linear function of the negative logarithm of molar solubility.