Solvent hydrodynamics speed up crystal nucleation in suspensions of hard spheres

We present a computer simulation study on the crystal nucleation process in suspensions of hard spheres, fully taking into account the solvent hydrodynamics. If the dynamics of crystallization in this system were purely diffusive, the crystal nucleation rate would be inversely proportional to the so...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Europhysics letters 2014-01, Vol.105 (2), p.26001-p1-26001-p5
Main Authors: Radu, M., Schilling, T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
64.60.qj
64.70.pv
64.75.Gh
Computational fluid dynamics
Computer simulation
Crystallization
Crystals
Diffusion
Dynamical systems
Fluid flow
Hydrodynamics
Nucleation
Solvents
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Summary:We present a computer simulation study on the crystal nucleation process in suspensions of hard spheres, fully taking into account the solvent hydrodynamics. If the dynamics of crystallization in this system were purely diffusive, the crystal nucleation rate would be inversely proportional to the solvent viscosity. However, we observe that the nucleation rate is enhanced at high viscosities with respect to the diffusive behaviour. This effect might explain the large discrepancy between the nuclation rates obtained by simulation and experiment that have been reported in the literature so far.
ISSN:0295-5075
1286-4854
DOI:10.1209/0295-5075/105/26001