A reexamination of the equilibrium conditions in the theory of water drop nucleation

Abstract

The thermodynamic equations necessary to describe the conditions for equilibrium between a highly curved surface of a liquid and its vapour are re-examined. The complete equilibrium behaviour is reduced to one single differential equation for each component in an arbitrary c-component system. It is shown that this general formulation can be specialized to describe the conditions for equilibrium between water vapour and a pure water drop, the drop carrying an electric charge, containing a water soluble substance and/or containing a water insoluble nucleus. In the light of the present formulation, some incorrect physical statements of treatments by various authors reported in literature are pointed out.

In an added note, the energy of homogeneous water drop formation is discussed and some erroneous conclusions which commonly are drawn in the literature from formulations on the energy of nucleus formation are mentioned.