The kinetics of phase separation in a liquid binary mixture

Abstract

A dynamical theory for the spontaneous formation and growth of spherical drops in a metastable liquid phase is constructed out of hydrodynamics, nonequilibrium thermodynamics, and thermodynamic fluctuation theory and used to predict the nucleation kinetics for phase separation in a liquid binary mixture. The nucleation rate is considerably lower than that predicted by classical nucleation theory and the inhomogeneities which result from forming nuclei in a finite time cause the actual kinetic path to differ considerably from the classical path. A qualitative agreement with experiment is demonstrated.