The influence of solvent on the pre-exponential factor and interfacial energy based on the metastable zone width data

Abstract

As the pre-exponential nucleation rate factor in classical nucleation theory is proportional to the diffusivity in solution, it is replaced in this work by the intrinsic nucleation rate constant multiplied by the solution temperature and divided by the solution viscosity. To elucidate the choice of solvent on the influence of the metastable zone width data, an integral model is proposed in this work to determine the intrinsic nucleation rate constant and interfacial energy of the crystallized substance in each solvent for a crystallization system. The results for salicylamide in various solvents indicate that a clear increase in the interfacial energy is observed as the boiling point of the solvent increases. Furthermore, a unique feature is found that the intrinsic nucleation rate constant increases linearly with increasing interfacial energy among various solvents with a high correlation coefficient.