NUCLEATION LABORATORY

HOMOGENEOUS NUCLEATION OF VAPORS:

CRITICAL SUPERSATURATION MEASUREMENTS

FOR

METHANOL, ETHANOL, 1-PROPANOL, 2-PROPANOL

J. Phys. Chem. 99, 16792 (1995)

Richard H. Heist

RESEARCH SUMMARY

    The temperature dependence of the critical supersaturation (Scrit) for methanol, ethanol, 1-propanol, and 2-propanol is reported.  The data obtained in this investigation came from two different thermal diffusion cloud chambers.  A few data points were also included for comparison purposes from a literature report involving a third thermal diffusion cloud chamber.  Together, these data span temperature ranges of 150K or more.  The critical supersaturation data were obtained using either helium or hydrogen as the background gas at total pressures of approximately one bar. When hydrogen is used as a background gas, we find that Scrit values for all of these alcohols are either equal to or greater than those obtained when helium is used as the background gas.  This behavior is consistent with observations reported in other papers from our laboratory (see papers 1, 3, 6, 11, and 12 in the list of recent publications) resulting from studies in which the dependence of the Scrit of these alcohols on the background gas was investigated and in which Scrit was found to depend on the kind of background gas, as well as the total pressure.

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