NUCLEATION LABORATORY

NUCLEATION OF 1-PENTANOL

USING A THERMAL DIFFUSION CLOUD CHAMBER  

J. Aerosol Science and Technology, 28(3), 259 (1998)

 Anne Bertelsmann and Richard H. Heist

RESEARCH SUMMARY

    In this paper, we report results of new nucleation experiments involving 1-pentanol with hydrogen as the background gas.  We utilized the high pressure diffusion cloud chamber (HPCC) and carried out from both constant pressure Scrit measurements and constant temperature Scrit experiments.  We continue to observe the significant background gas effects upon nucleation that we have reported previously.  We also briefly discuss the important issue of stability (the absence of buoyancy-driven convective motion of the gas-vapor mixture) within the cloud chamber. 

  Prior to our experiments, we applied our previously determined criteria for establishing the upper limit of total pressure to be used during the nucleation investigation described in this report thus insuring stable HPCC operation during our measurements.

    Typical data for the dependence of Scrit of pentanol on total pressure are shown in the figure for three temperatures.  The solid circles represent constant temperature data while the open triangles represent constant pressure data.  The agreement between the two is shown to be generally good.

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