Phase-field modeling of two-dimensional solute precipitation/dissolution: Solid fingers and diffusion-limited precipitation

TL;DR

This paper uses phase-field modeling to simulate two-dimensional solute precipitation, revealing diffusion-limited growth patterns with fractal structures similar to diffusion-limited aggregation, and compares results with analytical solutions.

Contribution

It demonstrates that phase-field models can effectively simulate diffusion-limited precipitation and reproduce fractal growth patterns comparable to DLA.

Findings

Fractal solid fingers with a fractal dimension of about 1.64 were observed.

Simulation results agree reasonably with analytical solutions.

Diffusion-limited precipitation exhibits similarities to DLA patterns.

Abstract

Two-dimensional dendritic growth due to solute precipitation was simulated using a phase-field model reported earlier [Z. Xu and P. Meakin, J. Chem. Phys. 129, 014705 (2008)]. It was shown that diffusion-limited precipitation due to the chemical reaction at the solid-liquid interface posses similarities with diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA). The diffusion-limited precipitation is attained by setting the chemical reaction rate much larger compared to the solute diffusion to eliminate the effect of the interface growth kinetics. The phase-field simulation results were in reasonable agreement with the analytical solutions. The fractal solid fingers can be formed in the diffusion-limited precipitation and have a fractal dimension measured , close to 1.64, the fractal dimensionality of large square lattice diffusion-limited aggregation (DLA) clusters.