Role of surface forces in heterogeneous nucleation on wettable nuclei

The condition has been formulated and the role of the surface forces at a solid-liquid interface has been established for the barrierless heterogeneous formation of a droplet on a macroscopic wettable insoluble solid nucleus in supersaturated vapour. The threshold value of the vapour supersaturation starting from which heterogeneous nucleation occurs as a barrierless process and all thermodynamic characteristics of heterogeneous formation of a droplet which are necessary for kinetic description of phase transition below the threshold have been found as a function of parameters of the exponential and the power-law approximations to the work of wetting of the nucleus associated with the surface forces and size of condensation nuclei: the coordinates and the half-widths of the potential hump and the potential well in the curve of the work of heterogeneous formation of a droplet; the activation barrier which droplets have to overcome by fluctuations in the process of formation of the stable phase.