Nucleation in the presence of an amphiphile: A density functional approach

Abstract

Density functional theory is applied to the study of gas-to-liquid nucleation in binary and ternary mixtures with one amphiphilic component. The theory allows the evaluation of density profiles and molecular orientation distributions in the critical nucleus. The predicted cluster compositions for binary and ternary systems resemble qualitatively the experimental behavior for water–n-alcohol and water–n-butanol–n-nonane mixtures, respectively.