Adiabatic nucleation in supersaturated liquids

Adiabatic nucleation theory (ANT) is shown to be in good agreement with experimental data of superheated liquids (boiling). Pure superheated liquids nucleate just a few K before reaching the spinodal, calculated by the Peng–Robinson equation of state. In spite of the correlation between the nucleation curve and the spinodal, nucleation is usually explained by the (isothermal) classical nucleation theory (CNT), which does not take into account the proximity of the spinodal. An alternative explanation is given by ANT. When the liquid is close to the spinodal, the spinodal is reached and overpassed by volume fluctuations and the nucleus appears as the result of spinodal phase separation.