CNT effective interfacial energy and pre-exponential kinetic factor from measured NaCl crystal nucleation time distributions in contracting microdroplets

TL;DR

This study introduces a stochastic approach to NaCl nucleation in microdroplets, revealing how interfacial energy and kinetic factors influence nucleation times, bridging the gap between theory and experimental observations.

Contribution

First stochastic analysis of NaCl-water nucleation kinetics using microfluidic systems, aligning experimental data with theoretical predictions.

Findings

Interfacial energies match theoretical values

Nucleation times depend on droplet volume and confinement

Stochastic treatment improves understanding of nucleation mechanisms

Abstract

Nucleation, the birth of a stable cluster from disorder, is inherently stochastic. Yet up to date, there are no quantitative studies on NaCl nucleation that accounts for its stochastic nature. Here, we report the first stochastic treatment of NaCl-water nucleation kinetics. Using a recently developed microfluidic system and evaporation model, our measured interfacial energies extracted from a modified Poisson distribution of nucleation time show an excellent agreement with theoretical predictions. Furthermore, analysis of nucleation parameters in 0.5 pL, 1.5pL and 5.5 pL microdroplets reveals an interesting interplay between kinetic confinement and shifting of nucleation mechanisms. Overall, our findings highlight the need to treat nucleation stochastically rather deterministically to bridge the gap between theory and experiment.