A diffusion-induced transition in the phase separation of binary fluid mixtures subjected to a temperature ramp

TL;DR

This paper investigates how diffusion influences phase separation oscillations in binary fluids under temperature ramps, revealing a sharp transition between diffusion regimes that affects nucleation behavior and droplet distributions.

Contribution

It introduces an advection-reaction-diffusion model to analyze the transition between weak and strong diffusion regimes in phase separation.

Findings

Identifies a sharp transition between diffusion regimes affecting nucleation.

Shows the transition depends on the composition probability distribution.

Suggests the transition explains experimental phenomena like secondary oscillations.

Abstract

Demixing of binary fluids subjected to slow temperature ramps shows repeated waves of nucleation which arise as a consequence of the competition between generation of supersaturation by the temperature ramp and relaxation of supersaturation by diffusive transport and flow. Here, we use an advection-reaction-diffusion model to study the oscillations in the weak- and strong-diffusion regime. There is a sharp transition between the two regimes, which can only be understood based on the probability distribution function of the composition rather than in terms of the average composition. We argue that this transition might be responsible for some yet unclear features of experiments, like the appearance of secondary oscillations and bimodal droplet size distributions.