Replacement free energy and the 1/S factor in nucleation theory as a consequence of mixing entropy

Abstract

In this paper we emphasize the mixing entropy phenomenon, which is common to both microemulsion and nucleation theory, and call upon its commonality to both areas to aid in the understanding of both the replacement free energy and 1/S factor in nucleation theory. In microemulsion theory the mixing entropy must be evaluated by the identification of a physically consistent length scale. After a brief summary of previous work in this direction, we use the same method, in nucleation theory, with the result that both the replacement free energy factor and the 1/S factor appear in a natural and physically consistent manner.