Gibbs Thermodynamics of the Renninger-Wilemski Problem

Abstract

The Renninger-Wilemski problem in nucleation is analyzed. The Gibbs dividing surfaces method with external parameters is used to enrich the initial model. It is shown that both the traditional (Doyle) model and the Renninger-Wilemski model are not complete ones and, namely, the Gibbs dividing surface approach can solve this problem. It is shown that the application of the Gibbs approach also requires some model constructions. The simplified Gibbs model is proposed. It is shown that the simplified Gibbs model gives for the height of activation barrier the same numerical results as the Renninger-Wilemski model.