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Driving force in first‐order phase transitions and its application to gas hydrate nucleation from a single phase
Author(s) -
CarreónCalderón Bernardo,
Soria Alberto,
RomeroMartínez Ascención
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
aiche journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 167
eISSN - 1547-5905
pISSN - 0001-1541
DOI - 10.1002/aic.11836
Subject(s) - nucleation , critical radius , classical nucleation theory , hydrate , clathrate hydrate , context (archaeology) , radius , phase (matter) , thermodynamics , homogeneous , chemistry , phase transition , gas phase , mechanics , physics , mathematics , geometry , computer science , geology , paleontology , computer security , organic chemistry , curvature
Classical nucleation theories of general application are taken as starting point to analyze the driving force for multicomponent gas hydrate nucleation from a single homogeneous phase. It is shown that the ratio between the specific surface energy and the critical radius of nucleation has a single value irrespective of the analyzed driving force expression. From this result, two driving force expressions for multicomponent gas hydrate nucleation are derived in the context of the so‐called generalized nucleation theory, and it is demonstrated that the driving force for gas hydrates can be estimated using the same information given for the determination of the incipient formation points of the dispersed phase from a saturated phase. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2009