Kinetics of the formation of nanocrystals in aqueous glucose solutions

We describe a thermodynamic model in which an aqueous glucose solution is treated as nanocrystals of glucose crystal hydrates immersed in a liquid phase. With the help of this model, we demonstrate that at temperatures close to phase transition temperature the solution is in a significantly non-equilibrium state, resulting in a dissipative spatio-temporal structure, which is a set of autowaves, generated by nanocrystals. We experimentally support these findings using light scattering data for the 32% aqueous glucose solution at temperatures between 20 and 70 °C.

我们构建了一套热力学模型，将葡萄糖水溶液视为浸没于液相中的葡萄糖晶体水合物纳米晶（nanocrystals）。借助该模型，我们证明了当温度趋近于相变温度时，该溶液会处于显著的非平衡状态，进而形成由纳米晶激发的、由一系列自激波（autowaves）构成的耗散时空结构（dissipative spatio-temporal structure）。我们通过采集20至70℃温度区间内32%浓度葡萄糖水溶液的光散射数据，为上述研究发现提供了实验支撑。