Nucleation Behaviors of Adipic Acid in Different Polarity Solvent Based on Metastable Zone Width

In this contribution, we experimentally determined the metastable zone width (MSZW) of adipic acid (AA) in different polar solvents to reveal the nucleation behavior. We performed analyses for different cooling rates, saturation temperatures and polar solvents. The findings showed that the MSZW increased as the cooling rate increased, or saturation temperature or polarity decreased. Here, we suggest that the hydrogen bond donor capacity decreases as the polarity of the solvent decreases, which weakens the solute and solvent interaction and makes the desolvation process more difficult during nucleation. Furthermore, we found that the MSZW is mainly determined by the cooling rate, when the cooling rate is large enough. On account of the classical nucleation theory, it was found that the sizes of the critical nucleus and Gibbs nucleation energy do not increase monotonously with increasing driving force. Moreover, this study confirms that solid–liquid interface tension is associated with crystallization driving force.