ABSORPTION OF GASES IN GROWING DROPLETS

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Abstract
The situation where a stationary droplet in a supersaturated medium is growing by condensation of a vapor and simultaneously absorbing a gas is theoretically analyzed to study the effect of growth on absorption rate. The absorption rate is assumed to be liquid phase diffusion controlled, and the unsteady state liquid phase diffusion equation with moving boundary has been solved by a similarity technique. The results indicate that for fast droplet growth rates, induced by relatively high degrees of supersaturation, the absorption rate is significantly enhanced, leading to higher solute concentration near the surface than that observed for a similar droplet of finite size. For slow growth rates, the results are not significantly different from the quasi-stationary results.